Social Responsibility

In order to enjoy convenient printing quickly at any time, the device always needs to be on. Therefore, reducing the power consumed by devices in standby mode was an important environmental issue to be addressed. That is why Konica Minolta turned to induction heating (IH) technology, which is already being used for cooktops. Utilizing this technology allows efficient energy conversion from electric power to heat, reduction of device warm-up time, and lower standby power consumption. In other words, Konica Minolta has maintained the same level of convenience for the user, while facilitating substantial energy savings.

The bizhub C550 is a color MFP that features these new technologies, and have succeeded in reducing power consumption by 40% compared with bizhub C450, a model launched two years before, while also achieving even faster copying speed.

Konica Minolta developed the Simitri HD Toner, an upgraded version of its proprietary polymerized toner.

Compared to a conventional pulverized toner, polymerized toner requires less energy during the manufacturing process, thereby reducing CO2 generation by more than 30%. In addition, the new Simitri HD Toner cuts energy consumption by about 30% during use.

The technology enabling this energy-saving breakthrough is the "core-shell configuration" of the toner particle, where toner particles are soft on the inside, so that they may be melted at a lower temperature, and hard on the outside, which prevents toner particles from adhering each other. This technology enables fixing even at temperatures that is 20°C below that for existing polymerized toners, while still producing high quality images.

The color MFP bizhub C650/C550, featuring these innovations, have earned the Director-General's Award from the Agency for Natural Resources and Energy, which is one of the 2007 Energy Conservation Grand Prizes.

Liquid crystal displays that are used in TVs, PCs, mobile phones, and car navigation systems enrich our lives in a dynamic way. LCDs are thin and lightweight, and they also lead to energy savings, and can thereby be regarded as an environmental technology that is familiar to most people. Konica Minolta provides triacetyl cellulose (TAC) film for use as a material to protect the polarizing plates on these LCDs, and has developed a new version that is half the thickness of conventional TAC film. With the reduction in the amount of raw materials used, the new film is contributing to resource conservation. Konica Minolta will continue to pursue innovations in this area and to incorporate them into its different product lines, thereby meeting consumer needs for increasingly higher resolution LCDs.

Konica Minolta's REGIUS Clinic System was developed with the goal of supporting medical practitioners working in clinics and small hospitals that provide medical services to their community. Therefore, the development concept for the system, which includes a CR device, server and viewer, was to make these components more compact, simple, energy-saving, and reasonably priced, as well as to provide high-speed processing performance. In addition to the basic image processing specifications as a CR device, the REGIUS Clinic System offers various other support functions for the medical setting, such as documentation, electronic data saving, and image linkup with electronic medical charts. It also offers the extensibility intrinsic to online connection with a view to future networking with major hospitals. The REGIUS Clinic System also leverages Konica Minolta's expertise in optical, image-processing, and communication technologies.