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Window of Opportunity
New Technology
Print Room Gets a Break
Unexpected Winner
The Future
The iR C3200
Headquartered in South Australia, Mitsubishi Motors Australia Ltd (MMAL), is one of Australia's largest exporters, earning hundreds of millions of dollars from sales of vehicles and components each year. Its Magna and Verada vehicles are successful in markets including the United States, Japan, Taiwan, New Zealand, the Middle East, Brunei and other Pacific nations.
"We pump an enormous amount of work through all our machines and are extremely impressed with the, quality, service and lack of downtime. We are very pleased with Canon."
? Jeff Cooper, Section Manager, Printing Operations Group, Information Systems
Window of Opportunity
In 2003 Mitsubishi Australia is a company in the fast lane. The company recently announced a $230 million investment in a new automotive research centre in Adelaide and installation of a new $40 million automobile manufacturing press. This is part of its $1 billion investment programme for the production of two all-new models post-2005, including its flagship Magna offering. The company is clearly growing fast.
As can be expected within a growing company, various departments have increased in size at Mitsubishi Australia. Subsequently they have been moved either within the Tonsley Park headquarters, or offsite, to accommodate staffing increases for the rest of 2003 and beyond. Over 100 new engineers are set to boost the company's new research centre, alone.
When it was decided that Mitsubishi's sales/marketing division would be moved altogether from the Tonsley Park offices to new premises in the Mark Oliphant Building at nearby Bedford Park, the company viewed the change as an opportunity to consolidate printing technology. This was done across a number of departments, not just the department which was moving.
"With sales/marketing moving offsite, there was an opportunity for quite a lot of consolidation to be going on across the locations," said Jeff Cooper, Section Manager, Printing Operations Group, Information Systems. "In this new environment, it didn't make sense to have multiple photocopiers and printers floating around the same floor. What did make sense, however, was to install one compact multifunctional unit in a centralised area where people can easily access it. We saw the window of opportunity open and decided to take advantage of it."
New Technology
Impressed by the multifunctional abilities of the colour imageRUNNER iR C3200 since a preview by Canon prior to its release in April 2003, Mitsubishi decided to make an initial installation of the device into three departments - sales/marketing, purchasing/supply, and its own internal print room.
"When we went out to Canon to see the iR C3200, we were quite impressed with what the machine could deliver in terms of efficiencies," said Mr Cooper. "It clearly had the potential of replacing all of our old equipment which had become obsolete in the wake of multifunction devices (MFDs)."
The biggest challenge the iR C3200 had to overcome, according to Mr Cooper, was the diverse printing requirements of the departments where the unit was to be installed.
"Both sales/marketing and purchasing/supply have a wide range of material to print, such as reports, year to date results, presentations and graphical representations of the business. On top of this is the demand for some of the material to be in black & white and the rest to be in colour in the fastest and most economical means possible, while maintaining high image quality."
Canon's iR C3200 stands out in the industry for its ability to print in high-quality colour at the same speed as black & white, in addition to the cost savings it can offer business, per print. For this reason, its implementation suited the diverse requirements that Mitsubishi departments had intended.
Print Room Gets a Break
Prior to installing the iR C3200s, the sales/marketing and purchasing/supply departments used the services of Mitsubishi's own internal print room for both short run and volume printing. Now both departments can produce their own short run colour, quickly and affordably. This allows the print room to concentrate on large print volumes using their dedicated production engine, a Canon CLC5000. The print room does, however, have its own iR C3200 to produce short run colour material for departments which don't yet have their own device.
"Having the iR C3200 in departments like purchasing and supply is great because it allows them a certain amount of freedom to create their own short run colour material," said Mr Cooper. "This saves time because they don't have to approach us for it and also allows the use of colour because it's literally at their fingertips."
Unexpected Winner
One facet of the iR C3200 which has taken Mitsubishi by storm is actually a feature that the company hadn't considered directly in its purchasing decision. Due to the iR C3200's ability to send hard copy documents directly to multiple e-mail addresses, fax machines or iFAX devices, Mitsubishi has been able to dramatically improve communication with the 250 dealer principals it must contact on a regular basis. Simply programming the devices with contact details allows the sending of documents in an efficient 21st century manner.
"We can use the device's Universal Send capabilities to deliver documents by e-mail, so instead of getting a hardcopy - which uses paper - we can now send documents straight to PCs via e-mail. I think the ability to upload fax numbers to the machine and scan a particular image or document to deliver to them has also surprised a lot of users with its overall ease," said Mr Cooper.
The Future
The changes that resulted in the implementation of new imageRUNNER technology at Mitsubishi aren't the end of its upgrades of Canon equipment, according to Mr Cooper.
"In September, quite a few machines across the company will be changed because they have reached their use-by date and, for their replacements, we'll be heading towards MFDs," said Mr Cooper. "Some will be iR C3200s, while others won't require colour onboard and will just be regular imageRUNNERs in black & white."
One of Mitsubishi's aims in its current consolidation of printing equipment is to eliminate as many different toners and cartridges as possible around the building. The result of this is, of course, easier ordering of supplies and a further space saving when it comes to storage, not to mention the ease of use as they all operate in the same way.
The iR C3200
Incorporating local R&D from Canon Information Research Systems Australia (CISRA), the imageRUNNER iR C3200 enables users to print, scan and copy in full colour, quickly, cost-effectively and at the same speed as black & white. Its value as the ultimate business tool is cemented by Canon's unique Universal Send functionality - which enables users to simultaneously scan and distribute full-colour documents via e-mail, Internet fax (iFAX) and local networks.
Since its introduction in April 2003, the iR C3200 has been a mammoth sales success for Canon, with demand constantly outstripping supply. Described as "the most significant device for the office environment, from any vendor, since the introduction of colour printers to the corporate market," the device is only just starting to earn its reputation in offices around Australia for its overall quality, performance, features and the way in which it is driving down the cost of colour printing in the office.
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