The OEM plans for the future in Telford, and talks about the company’s new direction.
The Shropshire Star reported that the manufacturer has been a major landmark for people travelling on the M54 motorway, as the factory is visible from there and has been “a major employer” in Telford for 10 years. Due to changes in the printer business and the advance of the “digital revolution”, the company has been driven to look at new directions for its business, which employs 700 people from Shropshire.
Colin Weaver, Managing Director of the European Operation, said: “Our journey was one of finding a new role within the group. It’s really centred on focussing on how we can use Ricoh’s own technology in new ways. There’s a lot of work being done on technological development. People don’t print anymore. Office print is definitely on the decline”.
Waver then noted that everything in his room was printable, “the carpet, table [and] the pictures on the wall”, leading him to explain that the business has moved into 3D printing, “which is a growing area of the business.” Ricoh is printing prototypes for the car and aerospace industries as well as parts for “injection moulding”, and is “doing some more pioneering work in Telford” using “hydrogels to 3D print realistic bodily organs which can be used by doctors to practice operations”.
Weaver commented on the medical side of the printing that “we are doing some work for a company in Spain that are customising prosthetic limbs”, and to do this they use data from MRI’s or CT scans. The company is still manufacturing traditional lines including “a growing toner bottling operation, which turns out more than 700,000 bottles of toner each week, an assembly line for bespoke commercial printers, and a remanufacturing operation for printers”.
There is also an inkjet operation, which helps companies “with rapid and changeable print runs” and experiments with printing on a variety of surfaces. Weaver recently became Managing Director but said “I was here before the buildings”, and is the first non-Japanese boss on the site. He paid tribute to his workers who have helped “drive the transformation” of the business at Telford.
He added: “Printer assembly has all been transferred to China and the Far East for production. It was our intention to understand what our new role was and our plan is always evolving. Trying to re-use skills that we have, particularly engineering skills, has been the key to finding new areas of activity. Making them happen has been about our staff being able to change quickly […] to be flexible enough to be able to do what they have.
“We have got newer challenges now. We are working with lots of different industrial organisations to help them improve their businesses. The year ahead has a focus on industrial print applications while maintaining our traditional activities. It’s really key for us to explore new markets for industrial print applications. The opportunities for 3D printing, inkjet and commercial printing are absolutely massive.”