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TECHNOLOGY REPORT

Keeping the wheels turning

B ers on recommended operator cleaning tasks. For
As a consequence, Ricoh provides training to custom-
But putting aside the matter of business gen-
eration, there are a number of causes of
Precious, such training “ensures that customers are
breakdown and failure. And as specialists in
It’s hard to know the sector explain, prevention is invariably equipped with the right skills to both operate the equip-
which is worse – a better than cure. Printweek spoke with four ment correctly and perform routine preventative mainte-
nance and cleaning tasks”. Getting this right is
manufacturers to find out what those in the
print company with industry should consider when thinking about maximis- fundamental as it should lead to a notable reduction in
not enough business, ing uptime. downtime and quality issues; also, when done in house
or a firm with enough this may offer a cost saving.
work but plant that Digital printing Failures happen
has broken down. Samantha Precious, strategy and services development The natural question is to ask what tends to cause
Neither are ideal and manager at Ricoh, says that there is a general acceptance equipment failures? In answer Precious points out that
that while certain maintenance work will always be nec-
both are worrying. essary, it is likely to have service-level agreements and they can be caused by any one of a number of causes, such
time penalties attached to it. as environment, general wear and tear, operator error,
media use and the like. “Some outages,” she says, “can be
Words by It’s for this reason that she says that “effective service paper related, which are mainly due to the quality and
Adam Bernstein and intervention is critical, so production processes are storage of the paper; where moisture in the paper causes
not compromised”. She remarks that the majority of problems.” She’s of the view that regular preventative
Ricoh’s customers “opt for the full maintenance pack- maintenance can “minimise the chances of disruption
ages, to ensure smooth and efficient maintenance of and downtime... at Ricoh, we offer regular advice and
devices”. But that’s not to say that all go down this route. training and provide real-time data to encourage opti-
Indeed, this is why the company offers different options mised uptime”. One thing that the company does offer is
that include full maintenance, a hybrid (shared) what Precious terms an ‘Operator Removable Unit’ for
approach, or a customer self-service approach. Ricoh’s higher end cutsheet presses. “These,” she says,

26 PrintWeek MENA June 2024 www.printweekmena.com