Trends and News

Hard Copy

The corporate utilisation of hard copy is changing, fast. As so many areas of our lives are enhanced by a shift away from analogue equipment, so the way that companies handle their data management is generating new hard-copy norms.

TV, video, music, phone and image technologies have all - at one level or another – embraced the changeover to digital operation. Document technology is proving no exception.

Driven by the Internet, corporate document strategies are changing. Whereas, once, hard copy was king and almost all communication and storage was paper based, normal office practice is being transformed by the ubiquity of networking, email and the web. The printed page is rapidly becoming simply a way of making data briefly more legible. Archiving, presenting or reporting is no longer dependent on paper.

Digitisation

Whereas the spread of data once invariably depended on source material being printed or copied before distribution; the widespread adoption of digitalisation has served to foster a new paradigm. Print before distribution is replaced by distribution before print.

To stay relevant, those of us that develop and produce printers and copiers must also change. As data is - more and more often - received, stored and communicated in digital format, the need arises for more flexible, better quality output devices. We at KYOCERA Document Solutions are at the forefront of this development.

Changing Times

Whereas other manufacturers have been forced to compromise, we have built a technological base that renders compromise unnecessary. By merging the long life page-printer technology of KYOCERA Corporation with the image processing and paper handling expertise of Mita, we alone are now able to let you produce your corporate documents in the way that suits you best.

We at KYOCERA Document Solutions are able, not only to produce the world’s best digital copiers, and by far the cheapest-to-run laser printers, but also to optimise their use on your behalf in the most sophisticated of digital environments.

Total Cost of Ownership

Cost of Printing

The lifetime cost of IT equipment has become a hot issue. Even PC manufacturers have adopted total cost of ownership (TCO) as a way of differentiating products remarkable only for their similarity. Printers, however, are different. Whether laser or inkjet, the principal operating expense, the cost of consumables, can be expected to represent several times the purchase price of the printer.

We at KYOCERA Document Solutions have long-since recognised the TCO of office printers to be a major issue. We understand that most printer manufacturers depend on sales of consumables for the majority of their profit and we know that the average networked printer consumes 11,000 pages worth of toner each month. Over a typical printer’s life, the difference in toner costs between KYOCERA printers and any of our competitors can amount to thousands of Euro's.

Check it out yourself
Use third party information to make the comparison for yourself. The KYOCERA Cost Saving Calculator uses the retail prices of all major printers and their consumables to demonstrate how each printer’s running costs is different from all the rest and how our range of ECOSYS printers offer huge savings and great value for money.

Climate Change Act 2008

A unilateral statutory commitment to 80% greenhouse gas reduction by 2050

The Climate Change Act was passed on 26th November 2008 and includes the following provisions:

• to set a target for the year 2050 for the reduction of targeted greenhouse gas emissions
• to provide for a system of carbon budgeting
• to establish a Committee on Climate Change
• to confer powers to establish trading schemes for the purpose of limiting greenhouse gas emissions or encouraging activities that reduce such emissions or remove greenhouse gas from the atmosphere
• to make provision about adaptation to climate change
• to confer powers to make schemes for providing financial incentives to produce less domestic waste and to recycle more of what is produced
• to make provision about the collection of household waste
• to confer powers to make provision about charging for single use carrier bags
• to amend the provisions of the Energy Act 2004 about renewable transport fuel obligations
• to make provision about carbon emissions reduction targets
• to make other provision about climate change. 

In passing the Act, the UK became the first country to commit to a unilateral target for reduction of greenhouse gases that is line with the expert opinion on what is needed to avoid irreversible global warming.

REACH Regulation

REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals) is a new European Community regulation that came in to force on the 1st of June 2007. It was introduced to regulate the manufacture, supply and use of chemicals.

Under REACH all chemical substances that are marketed in quantities of one tonne or more per year will need to be registered with the newly-created European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) in Finland. The first registration deadline is the end of November 2010.

The Regulation gives greater responsibility to industry to manage the risks from chemicals and to provide safety information on the substances. Manufacturers and importers will be required to gather information on the properties of their chemical substances, which will allow their safe handling, and to register the information in a central database run by the ECHA.

It also requires that users (who are not the manufacturer) of chemicals check that the use of the chemicals they are using has been assessed. If the use has not been assessed they must either stop using the chemical or they must make sure the chemical gets assessed either by informing the supplier of the use or by conducting an assessment themselves.

The Regulation also calls for the progressive substitution of the most dangerous chemicals when suitable alternatives have been identified.

KYOCERA Document Solutions UK is taking every possible to step to make sure it’s fully compliant with REACH. To find out about your obligations, visit the website of the Health and Safety Executive.

Compliance notes can be found by following this linkREACH Regulation.

WEEE

Waste Electrical & Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Regulations

The Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive (WEEE Directive) aims to minimise the impact of electrical and electronic goods on the environment, by increasing re-use and recycling and reducing the amount of WEEE going to landfill. It seeks to achieve this by making producers responsible for financing the collection, treatment, and recovery of waste electrical equipment, and by obliging distributors to allow consumers to return their waste equipment free of charge.

Every importer, rebrander or manufacturer of electronic equipment in the UK must meet their responsibilities under the terms of the WEEE Directive. Detailed information on how to do this can be found at the Environment Agency website.

If your business or organisation uses electronic equipment, then your supplier will need to arrange collection and safe disposal of that equipment when supplying you with new products as follows:

Business EEE from products put on the market after 13 August 2005

Manufacturers, retailers, branders and importers of Electrical and Electronic Equipment (EEE) are responsible for financing the collection, treatment, recovery and disposal of the EEE that they supply to businesses. The directive allows producers and businesses to agree alternative financing arrangements. This is a commercial decision and is likely to form part of the normal negotiating processes for supply contracts in the future.

Business EEE from products put on the market before 13 August 2005

Different arrangements apply for WEEE arising from products put on the market before 13 August 2005 (known as historic WEEE). If historic WEEE from businesses is being replaced by new equivalent products, the EEE producer is responsible for financing the collection, treatment, recovery and disposal when supplying the new products. In other cases, for example where the historic WEEE is not being replaced, the end user (the business) has to pay.

IEEE Standards

EPEAT

EPEAT
Environmental Performance standard for desktop products based on IEEE 1680

EPEAT is a system to help purchasers in the public and private sectors evaluate, compare and select desktop computers, notebooks and monitors based on their environmental attributes. EPEAT provides a clear and consistent set of performance criteria for the design of desktops, notebooks, monitors and integrated systems. It is based on the IEEE 1680- 2006 environmental performance standard for electronic products. EPEAT maintains a registry of compliant products and operates a verification program to assure the credibility of the Registry.

The IEEE 1680 standard contains 51 criteria - 23 required criteria and 28 optional criteria. To qualify for registration as an EPEAT product, the product must conform to all 23 required criteria - this provides "Bronze" status. By additionally meeting 50% of the optional criteria, products can be designated "Silver". Those that meet 75% of the optional criteria achieve "Gold" status.