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The city of Frankfurt, Germany, needs no introduction. Many in our industry have trodden the path from the airport to its trade show fairground, the Messe. It was unusual to drive straight by for another 30 minutes or so and exit onto country roads leading to a town called Giessen. My destination, in one corner of Giessen’s industrial district, was Canon’s Hardware Remanufacturing Facility for Europe.
Founded in 1972, about 300 people work on the Giessen site. In its 50-year history, the site has produced some of the first “bubble jet” ink cartridges, copier and printer drums, as well as filled toner cartridges and containers. The site’s focus on environmental matters is rather shorter in length, but it is now highly relevant and very important to Canon.
Let’s Talk Language
These days, it’s important to check we all understand the lexicon of words in use when discussing environmental matters. In this blog, “remanufacturing” means taking something apart and rebuilding it to “as new” specifications and performance. “Refurbishing” for Canon is simpler and does not call for every nut, bolt screw, wire, roller, display, or circuit board to be removed and inspected (more on that later).
The Reuse Process
There are several key activities at Giessen, with the primary focus on hardware remanufacturing, refurbishing, and pre-delivery installations. The facility also hosts a factory service center for cameras and printers, as well as a media testing facility for professional print operations.
The first step when a used copier arrives on site is to assess the machine into grades A, B, and C. Grade A machines are candidates for remanufacturing; grade B is for refurbishing and the C grade devices are most likely to be stripped for useful spares and recycled. Hardware remanufacturing for Canon is focused on three models: the imageRUNNER C5560i, C4545i, and C6275i. Candidate machines are stripped to their chassis, cleaned, any repairs completed, and then reassembled. Hard drives are wiped clean and counters are reset to zero.
Every panel on the remanufactured hardware is treated with proprietary solutions in a dedicated wash and dry area, which removes all flaws and provides an “as new” finish. Firmware, software, and apps are reinstalled with the latest versions and each device is thoroughly tested for print quality and performance.
Canon even files every print produced during the testing process for each remanufactured device so that any warranty claims can be tracked and traced back to the device and its components. That’s a mandatory requirement if the product is to enter the new Canon ES range and receive the Canon warranty.
Refurbishing Is Different
Refurbishing is completed in a separate area of the factory and not restricted to only three imageRUNNER models. Products from most of Canon’s portfolio, including production print and Océ wide format, can be refurbished at Giessen. It’s a far more individual and bespoke process where each technician completes the entire refurbishment process on an individual device.
Under the branding of “Certified Used”, which launched at the beginning of this year, Canon describes the process of refurbishment as an “industrial overhaul” of the device—meaning that typical field replaceable services parts are checked and replaced with genuine parts where necessary. Counters on refurbished machines are not reset to zero. We saw large format printers alongside single function mono devices going through the refurbishing process.
Refurbishing is not exclusive to the Giessen factory either. Canon has taken the refurbishing process and rolled it out to many of its national sales operations, establishing refurbishment centers across Europe. That is a significant saving in terms of hardware transportation across the region and a useful revenue stream for Canon. It also means consistent refurbishing across the organization, regardless of geographic location, delivering confidence for customers of its “Certified Used” brand. Every Canon refurbishment center can issue the Canon Product Refurbishment Certificate, underlining the consistency of the process.
Spare Parts Too
The Giessen factory also hosts a facility to remanufacture, refurbish, and repair spare parts (field replaceable units in Canon language) that go back out to service engineers, or are installed in remanufactured and refurbished hardware, once quality assurance checks have been completed.
We saw fuser units completely stripped to the heating elements, rebuilt, and extensively bench tested. Recycling, the process of breaking a product to its core elements for reuse, is the final destination for any parts not meeting original Canon specifications.
Paper Testing
Canon’s Giessen site hosts three climate testing chambers designed to stress test the devices and Canon’s range of branded papers for runnability under the most extreme temperature and humidity conditions. Canon works with its paper mill partners to ensure that each batch of paper offers clients optimal performance.
Keypoint Intelligence Opinion
Canon is not the only manufacturer in the industry to remanufacture and refurbish hardware. They may also not be the first to open its doors for further inspection of its facilities…and yes, the Canon Giessen site is unsurprisingly impressive. What else would you expect to maintain ISO 9001 and 14001 standards? As the industry reacts to growing interest in reuse, we expect more OEMs will want to share their capabilities in this regard. This is the easy part.
There are risks, too. Every remanufactured or refurbished device entering a second or third life is one less new device sale. That is a challenge for any OEM’s business model. Or is it? Each manufacturer has the capability to drive its manufacturing skills down the supply chain and take greater care, or even ownership, of its machines in the field. Somewhat surprisingly, or not, Canon has embraced the challenge and is enabling its entire enterprise to change. It is a work in progress, but they are gearing up and ready for far more remanufacturing demand and consequential new revenue streams.
Trickier is what, and how much, do manufacturers share about their supplies (re)manufacturing capabilities, business strategy, and plans?
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