Ricoh 3D Zooms in on Production Data with CO-AM for Continuous Improvement

Ricoh 3D, a business area within Ricoh Printing Solutions Europe Ltd, runs a busy additive manufacturing division with plenty of moving parts. Serving both internal and external customers, producing parts with standard 3D printing technologies and their own proprietary technology, handling orders across the UK and European marketplace — there's a lot to keep track of.

As business grew, it became clear they needed a new system to replicate standard practices from their other manufacturing departments. They required more detailed production status information and analytics to make fully informed decisions and uncover insights to improve their processes.

“Our mission called for more granular manufacturing data,” explains Richard Minifie, Senior Engineer at Ricoh 3D. “For example, tracking details that display where exactly parts are in the flow.”

They needed this information to ensure production performs at its best. More visibility into part status would improve customer updates. Performance data would add more depth into reports. And meeting stringent standards, such as ISO 13485, and aligning with their quality and compliance department would become less complicated. With all these advancements combined, their company goal of continuous improvement was fully attainable.

“One of the fundamentals of Japanese manufacturing companies is to minimize loss,” says Myles Jarman, Engineer at Ricoh 3D. “And unless you can see where that is, you can’t refine processes to make them as efficient as possible.”

Without the right tools, the team relied heavily on the production team for their updates. “Where’s this part?” “Is this delivery date still realistic?” — questions like these popped up regularly on their Teams channel. Since this information wasn’t easily accessible to all, the result was too many meetings and updates — all taking time away from their core work.

Ricoh’s global vision is ‘Fulfilment through Work’ — a key part of which is reducing tedious tasks and enabling people to focus on work that adds real value. With CO-AM in place, they’re not only guided in the execution of production requirements, but they also benefit from a more streamlined, self-managed ordering process that requires less intervention from the team. This combination frees up time and resources for the activities that truly make a difference.

The improvements begin with the ordering process. The team had the aspiration to bring a B2C-like user experience to B2B. DigiFabster, integrated directly into the CO-AM ecosystem, now handles Ricoh 3D’s online 3D printing orders, offering instant quotes, facilitating offline quoting and ordering, seamlessly passing requests to CO-AM.

From there, CO-AM, which is fully integrated with Materialise Magics, handles all of the production management up to shipping, from 3D printing and post-processing to finishing and quality control. And now, the complete printing team — sales, engineering, marketing, and management — can finally access all the required data directly.

Rich says, “We can pull the data ourselves now, which wasn’t possible with the previous system. Before, we had to place a request for it and factor in a waiting period before getting the data we needed.”

In the past, Rich was the go-to for anything software-related, but with expanded access to production data came a full-team approach to using the software. When someone needs data, they don’t need to flag down a colleague for help — they can handle it themselves, saving time for everyone.

As the company has evolved over recent years, the team’s gotten used to adjusting to new software systems. “Everyone was keen and open to adopting CO-AM. It’s a relief to access this production information, so the transition felt really positive,” shares Rich.

That positive reception didn’t happen by chance. “From the start, we knew adopting CO-AM couldn’t be approached in isolation,” says Rich. “We built a strong case with clear, relevant data that demonstrated not only the technical value of the solution, but also its wider business impact.”

Ahead of the formal proposal, the team delivered a Kaizen-based presentation to senior leaders to frame the challenge and opportunity holistically, highlighting benefits for scalability, governance, and long-term efficiency for all of Ricoh — beyond just Ricoh 3D.

Bringing IT and finance into the discussion early was also key. Their involvement ensured shared understanding, joint ownership, and alignment across strategic and operational goals. That enabled a smoother and faster deployment of CO-AM while maintaining the quality and rigour required for a business-critical solution.

The seamless collaboration extended to the Materialise team, too. As Rich puts it, “We’re used to taking a methodical approach to deploying software, and Materialise works the same way. Everything was well documented, establishing a clear schedule, clear ownership, and clear responsibilities. Aligning with a fellow industry leader who understands the manufacturing landscape also supports our ‘stronger together’ ethos — partnering up to strengthen the AM ecosystem. That gave us real confidence when we chose CO-AM and went through the initial onboarding.”

Now, with production numbers continuing to grow and a software ecosystem that supports it all, the Ricoh 3D team has their sights set — as always — on gearing up for continuous improvement. Namely, expanding their print services and further advancing their binder jetting technology.

The journey with CO-AM doesn’t end here either. With a reliable, stable system now in place, the next step is to explore opportunities for further automation and deeper business integration — making production even more efficient and traceable.

Now, with production numbers continuing to grow and a software ecosystem that supports it all, the Ricoh 3D team has their sights set — as always — on gearing up for continuous improvement. Namely, expanding their print services and further advancing their binder jetting technology.

The journey with CO-AM doesn’t end here either. With a reliable, stable system now in place, the next step is to explore opportunities for further automation and deeper business integration — making production even more efficient and traceable.