Selling Copiers & MPF's "The Perfect Storm"

Since 2007 our industry has been tested with the Great Recession, many of the companies we did bsuiness with are now out of business or just fighting to stay alive.

Some say the Great Recession is over, I'm not buying it, I think we've never come out of it.

The Great Recession is one part of the Perfect Storm that's humbled our industry.  Years ago, talk was that the copier industry was always the least affected when there was an economic slowdown.  Those days are gone...probably forever. 

In early March the Great Tohoku Earthquake of 8.9 devastated Northern Japan with a Sunami, failure of the Fukushima Nuclear reactors and caused severe supply chain issues for companies like Ricoh, Canon, Toshiba, Fuji Xerox along with all of the secondary tech companies that supported the copier/printer industry. We're still feeling the effects of certain MFP models that are on the "constrained" list. Some toner supplies are still in short supply and some key factories were closed in Northern Japan to never open again.

Just last week, seems I was not even aware of this until a Print4Pay Hotel member posted a thread on the forums about the sever flooding in Thailand.  A quote for Storage Newsletter "The HDD industry never encounters such a natural disaster in its history. Earthquakes in Japan had a minor effect compared to what's happening in Thailand."

25% of all Hard Drive assembly plants are located in Thailand, 95% of all Copiers and MFP's are equipted with Hard Drives.  The shortage looms on the copier industry again, in addition another company named Nidec was hit hard.  Here's a thread from a Print4Pay Hotel member about Nidec "And everyone better hope that Nidec's factories that were hit by the flood were not its printing related factories. Few know Nidec, but they make a solid portion of the motors and brushes found in copiers."

I admit I knew nothing of the flood, and how devastating the flood is for the people of Thailand and the effect on the Bang Pa Industrial Park.

It seems it been one thing after another, the economy, the devastation in Japan and now the historic flooding in Thailand.  I'll be watching the situation with Nidec and the Hard Factories closely and I'm sure there will be additional threads posted on the Print4Pay Hotel forums from other P4P'ers.

Anyone have anything they can add on the situation in Thailand??

-=Good Selling=-

This Week in Toshiba "TWIT Notes"

This information as posted on the Print4Pay Hotel forums today.

A putative class filed suit Tuesday in California against Panasonic, Toshiba and SanDisk Corp., alleging they overcharged consumers by up to $1 billion through a cartel to control intellectual property rights to secure-digital cards


Toshiba's two nuclear fuel facilities in Japan have been shut down since Friday's earthquake and tsunami, a top company executive told Reuters on Monday.

Toshiba’s stock plunged 16% in reaction to the fact that the company made several of the reactors at the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant in northern Japan. However, Toshiba’s CEO, Norio Sasaki, who is himself a former nuclear engineer, stated that company would not give up on its plans to grow its nuclear plant development.

Due to the recent shutdown of a Toshiba plant in Japan, some analysts predict a shortage of NAND flash memory chips, which are used in many different electronic devices.

-=Good Selling=-

Ricoh LTD commits to almost 3.6 million dollars (300 Million yen)

Ricoh LTD commits to 3.6 million dollars (300 Million yen) for relief and reconstruction of quake victims in Japan  (this was posted today on the Ricoh web site in Japan today.

Can we be affected here in the US & Canada?

Since the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant dangers are not under control, and the likes of Japan being back to normal in a few days, a few weeks or even months could be wishful thinking.  All of the events in Japan made me think what are the ramifications here in the US, if you're a reseller of Multifunctional Copiers?  Could there delays in getting equipment, supplies and parts?  As most of you know I sell Ricoh products, so I started today with some research on where the Ricoh facilities are located in Japan.  I realize that a lot of the units are assembled in China, however many parts, motors, pcb boards, connectors and some MFP's still are assembled in Japan. 

Back in 2003, I had the chance to visit the Tohuko, Ricoh Facility in Myiagi, which is located some 20 miles south of Sendai, and about 65 miles north of the troubled Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant.  When I had visited back in 2003, Tohuko was assembling 55 page per minute and above digital devices, along with Digital Duplicators.  I took a trip the their web site to see if they were still assembling these products but couldn't get any additional information from the site.

So, I put together this short list of locations and factories for Ricoh in Japan:

Ricoh operates factories in Tottori (Ricoh Microelectronics Co., LTD), located 421 miles southwest of Tokyo, Ibaraki (Ricoh Printing Solutions) which is about 95 miles south of the Fukushima Nuclear Plant and Miyagi (Tohuku Ricoh) which is about 20 miles south of Sendai and 65 miles north of the Fukushima Nuclear Plant, Iwate (Ricoh Optical Industries), which is located about 95 miles north of Sendai and about 55 miles inland of the Ocean, Yamanashi (Yamanashi Electronics Co., Ltd.) which is located about 73 miles west of Tokyo, Miyagi (Ricoh Hasama) lies 113 miles north of the Fukushima Nuclear Plant and 54 miles northeast of Sendai, Saitama (Ricoh Unitechno) is located about 13 miles north of Tokyo, Saga (Ricoh Keiki) about 713 miles southwest of Tokyo, Kanagawa (Handano & Atsugi Plant) is located 28 miles south of Tokyo and a few miles from Yokohama, Hyogo (Yashiro Plant) 331 miles southwest of Tokyo, Fukiu (Fukui Plant) located 324 miles west of Tokyo near the Sea of Japan, Shizuoka (Numazu & Gotemba Plant) is 111 miles southwest of Tokyo.


What They Do

The only plant I’m familiar with is Tohuku Ricoh,when I visited back in 2003, they produced 55ppm and above systems, along with duplicators, and additional products. Seems that the Gotemba Plant which is a production site for consumable solved with RFID tags, Fukiu Plant a manufacturer of electronic circuit modules, Numazu Plant, which is a production site for consumables.

How Will the Quake Affect Us in the US & Canada?

All I have are questions, will there be a shortage of certain hardware devices, parts & consumables?  Will we be able to fill our orders here in the US. Will I have any systems that I can deliver in 30 days, if so will what will be available and not available? Do I raise prices if there is going to be  delay in getting hardware?

I think Ricoh needs to send a message to Direct and Dealers asap either to alert us to changes or tell us that there will not be an interruption in our supply chain.

BTW, I put a new link on the top of the right of this site for the American Red Cross for donations for all.

-=Good Selling=-