OEM opens centre in Telford, Shropshire as it focuses on industrial inkjet in Europe.
Print Week reported on the opening of Ricoh’s European Inkjet Technical Centre in Telford, which comes as part of a “greater local focus on industrial inkjet in Europe” along with the appointment of Graham Kennedy as Business Development Manager, Industrial Print for Ricoh Europe.
The centre, which includes a “full laboratory set-up” enabling Ricoh to “support its OEM partners in analysing jetting characteristics, waveform design and fluid compatibility”, is expected to support all inkjet applications “including wide-format, digital print embellishment, textiles, printed electronics and 3D printing”; with these functions previously carried out at the OEM’s printhead systems business’ factory in California.
Newly appointed members of staff set to work at the centre include a technical manager from the company’s R&D team in Japan; a chemist, a mechanical engineer and a technical sales manager.
Kennedy commented: “I have been meeting customers from across Europe already to assess their confidence in our competence […] the general reaction has been really positive, and I’m encouraged by the level of support.”
He added: “To grow in the European market we needed a European support centre [..] it will enable us to be on-site at our customers more frequently and to provide better remote support by being in the same time zone.”
The Recycler also reported this week on Epson UK’s plans to focus on inkjet, with the OEM aiming to become the “number one player” in production print over the next 18 months through the launch of more than 10 inkjet printers.