Building a Recycling-Oriented Society
Resource Conservation and Recycling in Production Operations
Promoting Resource Conservation and Recycling at Production Sites
Konica Minolta considers the input of resources in production processes and the output of emissions as significant environmental impacts. Reducing and effectively utilizing these resources helps lower the environmental burden and reduce costs, and is therefore promoted in close alignment with business activities.
Efforts include developing site-specific measures for efficient resource use, quantifying their effectiveness using waste management data and Material Flow Cost Accounting (MFCA), and applying successful practices across different sites.
| Reduce material loss | Improvement in materials, parts, and product yield rates |
|---|---|
| Reduce packaging materials | Switching to simple packaging, increasing quantities inside packages |
| Reuse packaging materials | Switching to reusable shipping containers within the company, between production sites, with parts suppliers, and between countries |
| Reduce mold scrap | Adoption of dies with no molding scrap, minimization and internal recycling of molding scrap |
| Reduce press scrap | Minimization of feed pitch |
| Reduce support materials | Reuse of cleaning solvents, reuse of molding machine oil |
| Reuse pallets | Switching to reusable pallets with parts suppliers, changing the size of pallets for parts and using them to ship products |
Examples of Initiatives
Reducing the Amount of Waste Discharged by Applying the 3Rs to Plastic Mill Ends
At its production sites, Konica Minolta makes an active effort to promote the 3Rs (reduce, reuse, and recycle) for resin scrap generated at production sites in the molding processes for plastic parts. At Konica Minolta Business Technologies (Dongguan) Co., Ltd. in China, the site has reduced its use of plastic raw material by developing and installing molding dies that do not generate excess scrap.
Material input has been reduced by implementing hot runners in molding dies, minimizing runner sizes, and pulverizing and reusing runner scrap. Any remaining resin waste is effectively repurposed as material for items such as parts racks used in factories and parts boxes used for shipments from suppliers.
Reducing Packaging Material Waste
Konica Minolta is making efforts to reduce the disposal of packaging materials used at production sites when procuring materials and parts. For instance, it has simplified packaging, such as switching from stretch film for wrapping parts boxes together to packing belts that can be reused, and it has reduced the amount of packaging materials used by changing the number of units purchased when procuring materials to increase the number of units packed into boxes. Additionally, it has changed parts boxes from cardboard to reusable foldable boxes made using mill ends recycled from plastic parts. For parts procured overseas, interior materials of parts are returned to overseas suppliers for reuse and the same steel pallets used for overseas shipment from Japan are used for parts shipped to Japan from overseas, thereby reducing packaging materials both in Japan and overseas and reducing emissions.
Konica Minolta Business Technologies (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., which assembles MFPs in Malaysia, uses ABS plastic recovered from used game machines as a material for containers used in procurement and in-process transport in an effort to efficiently use resources. In an effort to streamline logistics, Konica Minolta Business Technologies (Malaysia) established a Smart Industry Center (SIC) in January 2018, which brings together major suppliers in a suburb near its plant. The aim is to reduce packaging and make more effective use of resources. This is done by adopting recycled ABS resin for shared plastic pallets used when parts are delivered within the SIC and to the factory.
The Company has also switched from using wooden pallets to sheet pallets for shipping unit parts to its business partners, thereby reducing the input of raw materials.
Reducing Waste Liquid Discharge
The Group is actively working to reduce waste liquid generated in its production processes. At Konica Minolta Chemical Co., Ltd., which produces chemical products in Japan, waste liquid is concentrated using its own distillation facility. These efforts contribute to reducing the volume of waste liquid discharged.
Lowering Defect Rates Using Production Data
Konica Minolta is striving to improve its product quality by reducing defect rates by utilizing various data gathered from production facilities. Konica Minolta Mechatronics Co., Ltd. is collecting various data by monitoring production equipment and product inspections as necessary. This enables the detection of data parameters that strongly correlate with the occurrence of product defects. By checking for changes in these parameters, the company aims to achieve highly efficient manufacturing that helps prevent the occurrence of defects. Implementation of these efforts is being accelerated at all Konica Minolta production sites.
