Business Sites:Production: Resource Conservation / Recycling
–Reducing Production-Related Packaging–

Returnable plastic box used for transportation of parts from suppliers

The Ricoh Group is working to reduce packaging waste over the whole delivery process ranging from suppliers to customers. To reduce the amount of packaging materials used for delivering products to our customers, we introduced “resource-recirculating eco packaging” in 2001. A similar model has been introduced to reduce packaging waste across the entire supply chain, for which we have developed original resource-recirculating packaging tools and systems. Previously, all the parts and units transported from Ricoh Asia Industry (Shenzhen) Ltd. (RAI) to production sites throughout the world were placed in corrugated cardboard boxes, which were then carried in containers. Waste materials are recycled by the business sites accepting the goods as corrugated cardboard, but recycling does cause some environmental impact and wastage of resources, which ultimately made it necessary to reduce used packaging materials. In light of this, returnable racks that can be used repetitively were introduced in fiscal 2007 for the transportation of some parts including scanner units from RAI to the Ricoh Gotemba Plant. In fiscal 2008, such racks were introduced for the transportation of ADF units from Ricoh Elemex Corporation (Shenzhen) to the Ricoh Gotemba Plant. Since fiscal 2009, use of this green packaging has been expanded globally, including for the transportation of items from RAI to Ricoh Industrie France S.A.S. (RIF). Improvement points were also identified in packaging used for the delivery of parts by suppliers, for which a huge amount of corrugated cardboard was consumed. To remedy this, the Group developed plastic boxes to be used repeatedly to transport parts from suppliers to RAI, and these have replaced corrugated cardboard boxes. In fiscal 2011, thanks to these returnable boxes, the amount of packaging materials used decreased by a total of roughly 330 tons and packaging costs by approximately ¥13 million.
The introduction of the returnable boxes has also contributed to improved load-carrying efficiency, which when combined with reduced packaging material waste, has led to an annual 80-ton reduction in CO₂ emissions and a ¥66-million cost decrease.