Integrity in Corporate Activities

Ricoh pursues products and services that simplify your life and work based on an understanding of social issues and taking diversity into account.

RICOH Brand Benefits

As information equipment becomes more sophisticated and multifunctional, it has become very important to help customers use and understand the built-in functions. The Ricoh Group is committed to taking responsibility for its products and services in a way that will build a society where as many people as possible can enjoy fulfilling work and a comfortable living environment through the benefits of information technology. One of our efforts to achieve this goal is the development of products and services in line with one of RICOH Brand Benefits:"Simplify your life and work," which emphasizes human-friendliness.

How we understand accessibility and a system for our activities

Ricoh's products are already uniquely qualified to simplify your life and work. Now we're taking things even further.

Easy-grip toner bottleEasy-grip toner bottle
Easy-pull-out paper-feed trayEasy-pull-out paper-feed tray

Ricoh's products and services, including multifunctional digital copiers, are always being improved and are used by more and more people. Some users, however, are not familiar with how to use them or how to remove jammed paper from copiers, which sometimes inconveniences them.
Much of today's sophisticated, increasingly multifunctional technology can only be mastered by users who are highly IT literate. That's why Ricoh is focusing more than ever on accessibility. We want more people—with or without disabilities, young and old—to benefit from the intuitive operability and convenience of our products.

We're giving our products more functions. Functions that more people can easily operate.

Going beyond delivering the high level of functionality and reliability that satisfies our customers, Ricoh determined to go the extra mile in user-friendliness as well. Our efforts have produced thoughtful, high-performance accessibility enhancements designed to simplify your life and work. For example, to enhance user interaction with Ricoh devices, we've implemented easy-to-read large 8.5-inch, full-color LCD panels. Also a simplified display settings are implemented for older people and others with less-than-perfect eyesight. And on the rare occasions when it may be required, guidance on clearing paper jams and other troubleshooting is provided with easy-tounderstand animated icons. We're innovating to save customers time and effort in other ways too, with bottle-shaped toner cartridges, designed to be replaceable with one hand, and a detachable scanner unit that can be comfortably operated even by wheelchair-users.

Thorough verification from the user's perspective: Continuous pursuit of advanced
user-friendliness

Simplified screen functions deliver enhanced operabilitySimplified screen functions deliver enhanced operability

Intent on delivering advanced userfriendliness, Ricoh looks at things from the perspective of the customer, not the manufacturer. Our manufacturing processes are customer-driven: we study how customers actually use our products, and reflect our findings in ongoing research and development. For example, we perform, repeated tests to determine the exact strength needed to pull a paperfeed tray out smoothly, and to ensure that our devices can be operated by people with various physical disabilities. To verify the accessibility of our products, we distribute questionnaires to users. These efforts all help us to improve our products. More efforts will be focused on pursuing the more challenging goal of providing customers with products and services that simplify their life and work.

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Concept and examples of color universal design activities

Efforts to build a society where the diversity in different people's color vision is addressed in a way that allows anybody to access information comfortably

Ricoh is promoting "colorization" of office documents ahead of other companies in the industry. The focus of our business is on introducing multifunctional color copiers and color printers to the market so that people can enjoy all the benefits and make good use of the effects of colors in conveying information in a variety of ways. However, it is also true that many people with imperfect color vision face obstacles with increased colorization. In this context, we promote of color universal design (CUD), which is exactly in line with our efforts to promote the colorization of information.
Continuing efforts will be dedicated to building a society where as many people as possible can enjoy the benefits of colorization.

■ Expansion of color universal design activities in the Ricoh Group

Expansion of color universal design activities in the Ricoh Group

 

Efforts to incorporate CUD features into products at the development phase and activities at offices and plants

  • Ricoh Group / Japan

At the product engineering phase, we incorporate CUD features mainly in designing image solution products such as multifunctional copiers, digital cameras and clocks. For example, we equipped some models of multifunctional copiers with a CUDcompliant printing function, which allows users to convert colors that are difficult for people with imperfect color vision that are easier to differentiate with an easy operation before printing. Ricoh introduces more and more products equipped with these advanced functions that comply with CUD standards every year.
Regarding communication tools, the showroom at Ricoh Head Office received CUD certification in 2008 for the first time in Japan, followed by the photo gallery "RING CUBE." All the displays and signs at each office and plant were inspected in terms of security, safety and absolute quality, and improvements were made.

 

Successfully establishing a humanfriendly office environment through our efforts to incorporate CUD features from the construction phase

  • Ricoh Technology Center / Japan

Ricoh Technology CenterRicoh Technology Center

A new building at the Ricoh Technology Center (Ebina, Kanagawa) was completed in fiscal 2010. Its main feature is a comfortable, easy-to-work-in, and humanfriendly office environment and efforts to incorporate this feature started at the construction phase. For example, the direction displays, floor number displays and operating buttons in elevators, and lighting switches were made to comply with CUD standards. Barrier free features, such as multipurpose washrooms, slopes, parking lots for the handicapped, and flat floors, were also incorporated. These efforts were highly evaluated, resulting in being awarded the "Third Kanagawa Barrier Free Urban Development Award (Hardware Division)" in January 2011.

 

Expanding our internal CUD activities to the whole of society

  • Ricoh Group / Japan

As one of its Customer Innovation Support Service (CIS) programs to introduce and provide internal activities to customers, Ricoh organizes seminars on CUD activities and accepts benchmarking for these activities. We believe that these efforts will raise customer awareness of the importance of CUD activities and help share information on our activities, eventually spreading the concept widely among the general public.

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