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- Konica Minolta Business Technologies, Inc.
Social Responsibility
About
Together with Customers
Konica Minolta Business Technologies, Inc.
Concept
Always creating products and providing services from the customer's standpoint
The bizhub series MFP
Konica Minolta Business Technologies, Inc. (Business Technologies) provides equipment for offices and production printing markets around the world, including digital multi-functional peripherals (MFPs) and printers. The company believes that creating products and providing services from the customer's perspective is paramount. Therefore, Business Technologies has created various mechanisms to facilitate this. Requests and comments from customers are carefully gathered, and the relevant information is then quickly relayed to various departments in the company for making improvements.
In order to maintain and improve quality and ensure customer satisfaction, the company places top priority on product safety, while improving its evaluation and analysis abilities for introducing new technologies.
Initiatives for Improving Customer Satisfaction
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The following explains the details of the items marked with a 
symbol.
Worldwide information sharing system
Gathering feedback from customers around the world to make improvements in various departments
Business Technologies aims to consistently provide products and services from the customer's perspective. It utilizes feedback from customers to develop new products and to improve existing products used by customers.
To this end, the company is setting up a system to give rapid and attentive support in response to inquiries and improvement requests. Its sales companies in various countries have set up their own call centers to solicit information from service and sales personnel and to give rapid and attentive support in response to customers' inquiries and requests for improvement.
The company organizes the information gathered from call centers worldwide in a database using a standardized global system. The information is then shared throughout the company at every level, from development to production, quality assurance, and sales. Business Technologies strives to quickly identify latent problems through effective data analysis and to efficiently relay information to relevant departments.
Remote Diagnosis and Control System: CS Remote Care
Monitoring equipment conditions using telecommunication lines
Business Technologies' proprietary CS Remote Care (CSRC) system manages and supports the reliable operations of MFPs via secure connections through telecommunication lines.
Should a product have a problem, CSRC promptly connects to the service management systems of the Group's sales companies. Thanks to this remote diagnosis and control system, our customer service engineers usually know what is wrong before they even get to the office where the product is in use. This goes a long way to minimizing machine downtime.
CSRC also periodically monitors product status and has functions for managing equipment condition and supplies. Based on the information provided by the system, engineers visit users' offices to inspect machines, or supplies can be sent out automatically. This helps prevent equipment breakdowns from occurring in advance, thereby enhancing convenience for customers.
Mechanism for CS Remote Care
Joint Evaluation Meeting
Reflecting the Perspective of the Sales Company in the Development Stage
Joint Evaluation Meeting
in the design stage for the development of key models. The meetings are attended by customer service engineers and marketing staff from its major sales companies around the world. Together with R&D engineers, evaluations are carried out concerning prototype safety, operability and serviceability. By reflecting a customer conscious perspective in the development stage, Business Technologies is working to create even better products.
Customer Engineer Training
Using e-learning and a unique online training system for certification acquisition
Improving the quality of customer engineers is a vital step when ensuring customer satisfaction through equipment servicing.
In order to train customer engineers with the knowledge and technical skills needed to handle the latest technologies and changes in the market environment, Business Technologies has deployed an e-learning training system for its customer engineers. The company is also the first in the industry to introduce a global qualification system for its customer service engineers, called “OUTWARD.”
With the collaboration of specialists at its sales companies worldwide, Business Technologies is developing high-quality learning content that anticipates market trends and covers the latest technological developments, and uses it in its e-learning training programs and OUTWARD global qualification system.
e-learning system
OUTWARD, the Global Qualification System
Business Technologies has developed its own global qualification system for customer service engineers, called “OUTWARD.” The system consists of qualification rankings based on degrees of difficulty, and confers qualifications and designations by top management.
The system has been adopted as the common career path by Business Technologies' sales companies around the world. As of fiscal 2008, roughly 10,000 people have obtained qualifications, and 15,000 people have taken courses through OUTWARD.
In September 2008, the OUTWARD Global Qualification System received a prestigious US education prize, the Brandon Hall Excellence In Learning Award, as a successful example of a worldwide learning team.
OUTWARD, the Global Qualification System
Standardization of terminology used for products and user manuals
Eliminating inconsistent terms and vague expressions
Business Technologies has implemented rules for the standardization of terms used in documents such as MFP display panels, application screen displays and user manual. In addition to preferred terms and expressions being collected in a database, rules have been established for writing style and the word count limit. A system has also been constructed based on these rules in order to support the preparation of documents.
While striving to eliminate inconsistent terms and vague expressions, this effort is helping to provide customers with an accurate understanding of Konica Minolta products.
The initiative also helps to improve the efficiency of translating documents in many different languages.
Customer Satisfaction Survey
Carrying out ongoing surveys and providing feedback in business activities
Business Technologies carries out customer satisfaction surveys through an independent organization in order to ascertain customer satisfaction with its products and services and provide feedback in business activities. The company also conducts ongoing surveys using its own system.
After launching a new key model, staff responsible for service and development travel around and visit customers in person to check how new products are actually functioning and to obtain customer feedback. The information obtained is used to improve not only current products, but also to improve the quality and convenience of next-generation products.
In fiscal 2008, Business Technologies was ranked number two in the color copier category for overall customer satisfaction in Japan, according to a survey conducted by J.D. Power.
Ensuring Product Safety
Creating standards and systems for securing safety
Business Technologies sees product safety as the most important quality assurance issue. The company is working to ensure product safety through careful daily monitoring based on the fundamental policy of first eliminating small product defects and problems in order to prevent any major accidents (see diagram below).
Business Technologies not only observes all laws concerning electrical products but also complies with its more stringent Electrical Safety Design Standards, which it established in-house. As such, all of the company's products are subject to rigorous standards above and beyond legal requirements. It has also created a mechanism for securing product safety on a cross-organizational basis through its own Product Reliability Appraisal Team (PRAT).
Basic Concept for Product Safety
Test Laboratory for Combustion Testing
Business Technologies designs its products to eliminate any chance of them catching fire or emitting smoke. However, in the event that such an incident or a building fire should occur, products must have a fire-resistant design to prevent the spread of fire. Therefore, fire-retardant plastics are selected when designing products. In order to get accurate data on fire safety, products need to be subjected to combustion testing.
A laboratory for reliability testing was built in January 2009 in order to accommodate combustion testing. Now detailed combustion information can be obtained for products using this laboratory with its cutting-edge analysis equipment. The facility is also equipped with sophisticated smoke elimination technology, thereby allowing combustion testing without any impact on the neighboring environment.
Improvement of Evaluation and Analysis Technologies
Building a system that can deliver new technologies on a steady basis
In providing customers with a new, innovative technology, it is essential that such technology be capable of being evaluated accurately so that potential defects can be anticipated and prevented. Therefore, Business Technologies is always striving to increase the sophistication of its evaluation and analysis methods, as well as related equipment, in order to enhance its evaluation capability and offer new technologies in a reliable manner.
Initiative for the Development of Quiet Products
The inside of the acoustic test laboratory
Initiative for the Development of Quiet Products Business Technologies is pursuing the development of quiet products that do not disturb the office environment, by measuring and analyzing various sounds that are generated by MFPs and printers.
As part of this effort, the company carried out joint development with a university to find a method for analyzing noise generated by products. After devising a method, the company could predict the noise level of planned products, thereby facilitating the development of quieter office products for more pleasant work environments.
In fiscal 2008, the company established an acoustic test laboratory with world-class acoustics features, for which it obtained ISO/IEC 17025* accreditation from the National Institute of Standards and Technology in the U.S. As a result, Business Technologies is now able to perform noise-level measurements required for the German environmental protection label Blue Angel mark.
- *
- ISO/IEC 17025: General requirements for the competence of testing and calibration laboratories
TOPICS
Remote Support Center for On-Demand Printing
The test lab at the remote support center in Tokyo
Business Technologies provides remote support, 365 days a year, to clients of its on-demand printing system*, in order to handle equipment problems in real time. At the remote support center that serves as the base for this service, operators with specialized knowledge in desktop publishing and engineers skilled in equipment maintenance work together to resolve client issues and minimize their downtime.
When a call comes in, the operator confirms the malfunction situation while referencing the client's data.
The operator then performs a remote diagnosis of the client's printing system via telecommunication lines before taking the appropriate measures and giving advice to the client. Since the operator can view the same screen as the client, he or she can offer tailored support based on an accurate understanding of the situation.
Depending on the conditions, a client's settings can be changed remotely, or the client's system environment can be re-created in a test lab in order to identify the cause of the problems and offer ways to resolve them.
When the client's printing system detects a malfunction, it automatically sends an urgent message to the remote support center. The center can then check the problem and take appropriate action even if no call comes from the client.
- *
- On-demand printing system: A system that prints a required volume of copies upon request. Color MFPs enable fast and low-cost printing by directly reproducing and printing information from computers.
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