Case Study: Keep Color Printing Running While Cutting Only Toner Spend
Stabilizing an insurance branch’s electrophotographic A3 color printing with recycled toner to eliminate budget overruns
Compatible Printer
The installed device is the Ricoh RICOH SP C840, an electrophotographic A3 full-color printer capable of 55 pages per minute in both color and monochrome. The durability class is up to 1.2 million pages or five years, whichever comes first. We designed the consumables operation around recycled toner cartridges, with strict control of key toner properties such as flowability and triboelectric charging stability, so image density remains consistent through developing, transfer, and fusing.
Delivery Information
Delivery site: Insurance company branch office in Nagoya, Japan
Industry: Insurance
Scale: Branch environment with a large sales team and high document output demand
Region: Nagoya City
Delivery No.: 25150517
Customer Challenge
The branch manager needed to balance cost, revenue, and profit under tight monthly budget control. In insurance sales operations, clear customer-facing materials and proposals often require color printing; reducing print volume risks hurting sales outcomes. At the same time, toner cartridge spending was the one budget item that repeatedly exceeded plan. The management and administrative teams needed a way to reduce cost without stopping operations or forcing extra work, restrictions, or frustration onto employees in the field.
Our Proposal and Operational Design
Because we have long experience handling aftermarket toner-cartridge manufacturing materials and components, including toner powder, drums, and chips, we approached the project by eliminating the most common failure drivers in the electrophotographic process before they appear in production. Even with recycled toner, unstable toner charge can lead to density unevenness and background fog, while poor flowability can cause supply instability and slow response in density control. We therefore prioritized stable lot management and operating conditions that minimize stress on the printer. We also built a simple inspection and light-maintenance routine focused on areas where issues typically surface across the developing, transfer, and fusing systems, enabling early detection and fast containment. In addition, to prevent consumable shortages in a security-controlled building, we simplified the ordering method so administrative staff could place correct orders easily, and we established next-day delivery as the standard to keep up with output increases.
Customer Results
The branch switched to 100% recycled toner usage while keeping color printing fully operational. Toner spending decreased by 40%. Monthly budget control improved because the main overspending item became more predictable. The branch manager was able to sustain sales activities without the typical “print less” trade-off, and the IT and general affairs teams reduced risk of stockouts and operational disruption through controlled delivery and close coordination with on-site administrative staff.
Why We Are Selected
We supply materials and components to recycled-toner manufacturers, which allows us to optimize device characteristics and consumable quality together, not separately. We can design an integrated approach across device suitability, paper compatibility, and operational design, covering thick-paper printing, image-quality issues, toner cost reduction, and maintenance planning. We start from your current paper types and print samples and conduct pre-validation to minimize adoption risk. We have been engaged in the recycled toner business for approximately 30 years, with deep expertise in color laser printer environments, which currently represent about 80% of our sales mix.
If You Have Recycled Toner Challenges
Each printer model has different maintenance requirements, including periodic cleaning, replacement of wear parts, image adjustment, and paper-transport checks, and many models require preventive maintenance at defined intervals. Introducing consumables without understanding the printer’s image-formation process, transfer and fusing behavior, and paper-transport structure can lead to image defects, jams, contamination, and fusing failures, which then increases the total cost of ownership through replacement and corrective work. SIS Partners provides end-to-end proposals from model selection to consumables operation and maintenance.
Search Keywords
Recycled toner / Color laser / Thick paper printing / Thick paper mode / Fusing failure / Background fog / Toner contamination / Image quality defect / Paper jam / Transport failure / Transfer defect / Calibration / Density adjustment / Maintenance / Preventive maintenance / Wear-part replacement / Running cost reduction / TCO reduction / Medical printer / RICOH SP C841 / RICOH SP C840
Company Overview
SIS Partners Co., Ltd.
Address: 4F, Daini Totosho Building, 1-89 Takayashiro, Meito-ku, Nagoya, Aichi 465-0095, Japan
Tel: +81-52-753-3782 Fax: +81-52-753-3783
Licenses: Secondhand Dealer License No. 541421700200 / Real Estate Broker License Aichi Governor (1) No. 24728
Products and Services: Reuse PCs, new PCs, recycled toner, OEM toner, overseas-market genuine toner, UTM, EDR and security software, business printer rentals, MFP rentals, PC disposal and buy-back, physical media destruction for data erasure, office leasing support
Service Coverage: Nationwide in Japan