Oki increases colour laser duty cycles

Printacom, the official importer of Oki printers in SA, has announced that Oki has raised the duty cycles, being the proportion of time during which a component, device or system is operated, on all of its colour laser printers.

This decision will allow customers to print more pages per month, without the concern of the reliability and quality of their print jobs as printers near the end of their lives.

"Oki has always been an industry leader when it comes to printing technology," says Neil Rom, MD of Printacom. "This latest increase in the workload that the printers can handle per month is proof once again of Oki`s ability to continuously deliver high-quality printing at the lowest total cost of ownership."

Rom adds that the initial duty cycle calculations Oki used were fairly conservative to ensure the peak performance of the printers over their life spans. Over a number of years, Oki has collected and analysed information, such as warranty, failure and lifespan data of a broad range of their colour machines.

"The results demonstrated what users had already discovered: the printers are even more reliable than expected - hence the increased duty cycle," Rom explains. "The increases have gradually come into effect allowing Oki`s engineers to ensure the systems retain the highest quality and reliability standards."

In changing the duty cycles, Oki have also ensured that the respective development and manufacturing sections within the global organisation supported the move. "A printer is only as good as its weakest link and only as reliable as its most unreliable component," Rom adds. "Getting buy-in from the whole team, from engineering to marketing, was critical to the implementation of the raised print cycles."

These increases also place Oki on a more competitive footing. "Few competitors would be comfortable raising their duty cycles," Rom concludes. "This is understandable when considering the long-term warranty requirements that increased workloads could place on their service teams if the printers are not capable of delivering the quality and reliability Oki does."