New Konica TN324K oem toner

[blazebusiness]

Just received a big order of Oem TN324k toners. The new packaging is less than impressive though. Almost looks like a generic packaging. Hopefully the toner formulation isn't as substandard and cheesy as the packaging.
New Oem TN324k toner.jpg

[techsxge]

Re: New Konica TN324K oem toner

Just received a big order of Oem TN324k toners. The new packaging is less than impressive though. Almost looks like a generic packaging. Hopefully the toner formulation isn't as substandard and cheesy as the packaging.
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Thats how i always recieve my Toner. I usually order in big batches

[blazebusiness]

Re: New Konica TN324K oem toner

Thats how i always recieve my Toner. I usually order in big batches

I have been ordering oem (コニカミノルタ, Konika Minoruta) toner since their merger in 2003 and have never ever seen that non-retail style packaging before. Makes me think they subcontracted thru mitsubishi chemical corp or somthing to meet demand, but maybe not. Still, I was glad to get a bunch of it in. We were running low.

[techsxge]

Re: New Konica TN324K oem toner

I have been ordering oem (コニカミノルタ, Konika Minoruta) toner since their merger in 2003 and have never ever seen that non-retail style packaging before. Makes me think they subcontracted thru mitsubishi chemical corp or somthing to meet demand, but maybe not. Still, I was glad to get a bunch of it in. We were running low.

When i ordered in low quantity (10,20) its usually packed different (probably what you meant) but if i order 50+ it comes in those boxes.

[blazebusiness]

Re: New Konica TN324K oem toner

When i ordered in low quantity (10,20) its usually packed different (probably what you meant) but if i order 50+ it comes in those boxes.

Guess I thought it was something out of the ordinary but if you've seen these non-retail style boxes for years now then I will have to deduce it is nothing new. I know HP toners for years now have offered non-retail plain packaging boxes to authorized resellers but never saw this with Konica before.
When the Tatsuno Konica plant had the fire I was shocked that Konica did not have more plants around to easily take up the slack and thereby prevent the toner and image unit shortages.
That plant surprisingly only employed a total of 44 people. Seems like an awfully small number to handle what must be a huge global demand. Concensus is static electrical charges started the fire.

There is also a Kofu Factory, but it was shut down also for risk assessment due to static electricity concerns that the same toner drying process might also start a fire.

There must be other plants,outside of China if not, how crazy is that. And since CET acquired Mitsubishi and took over the pulverized toner production and probably chemical based toner production, I thought Konica might have been forced to acquire stuff there in light of the shortages.

I based my remarks about Konica perhaps having subcontracted the toners and the cheesy packaging on a press release Konica made about alternative toners a while back late 2021:


"Supply of toners for office products continues so that customers can continue to print. Regarding toners for on-demand digital printing systems, we are trying to recover at an early stage, including adoption of alternative toners."

Near as I can tell, we are suffering now a lack of production due to less plants caused by the 2018/2019 merger of Konica Minolta Supplies Manufacturing Co., Ltd. and the Konica Minolta Supplies Manufacturing Kansai Co., Ltd.

This wiped out the latter company and some of it's production as the remaining merged entity Konica Minolta Supplies Manufacturing Co., Ltd. trimmed away any excess production deemed not needed after the merger.

[techsxge]

Re: New Konica TN324K oem toner

Guess I thought it was something out of the ordinary but if you've seen these non-retail style boxes for years now then I will have to deduce it is nothing new. I know HP toners for years now have offered non-retail plainer packaging boxes to authorized resellers but never saw this with Konica before.
When the Tatsuno Konica plant had the fire I was shocked that Konica did not have more plants around to easily take up the slack and thereby prevent the toner and image unit shortages.
That plant surprisingly only employed a total of 44 people. Seems like an awfully small number to handle what must be a huge global demand. Concensus is static electrical charges started the fire.

There is also a Kofu Factory, but it was shut down also for risk assessment due to static electricity concerns that the same toner drying process might also start a fire.

There must be other plants,outside of China if not, how crazy is that. And since CET acquired Mitsubishi and took over the pulverized toner production and probably chemical cased toner production, I thought Konica might have been forced to acquire stuff there in light of the shortages.

I've seen this since early/mid 2020. A call to my supplie (Olivetti / KM) told me that it is infact their original Toner but to reduce their own costs they stopped using the printed cartons. So all the boxes you still get as before should just be older cartons

[blazebusiness]

Re: New Konica TN324K oem toner

I've seen this since early/mid 2020. A call to my supplie (Olivetti / KM) told me that it is infact their original Toner but to reduce their own costs they stopped using the printed cartons. So all the boxes you still get as before should just be older cartons

Sounds about right, that was after the 2018/2019 merger of Konica Minolta Supplies Manufacturing Co., Ltd. and the and Konica Minolta Supplies Manufacturing Kansai Co., Ltd.

They were looking to maximize profit and streamline cost, see quote below from 2019:

Purpose of Merger
Konica Minolta launched a Medium Term Business Plan, SHINKA 2019, in the current fiscal year to facilitate a shift to a highly profitable corporate structure.
Konica Minolta will accelerate a shift to a highly profitable corporate structure by continuing its ongoing efforts to promote next-generation manufacturing workflows, Digital Manufacturing, and by consolidating production operations to improve productivity, streamlining head office functions to enhance efficiency of indirect operations, and introducing an integrated manufacturing system for the entire process from production of materials to molding.

My take---------The explosion was in August 2021. That's over 10 month's ago. Even taking into consideration that they had to do a risk assessment and close all plants using the same toner drying process to ensure static electricity igniting the dust would not happen again.... there is no reason that 10 month's later we are still experiencing shortages. I love Konica and the Konica equipment is our favorite brand to sell and service, but they easily with a greater effort could have resolved this situation much sooner.

Less manufacturing plants is not a good strategy. They apparently learned nothing from Japan's "Just in time supply chain" failure - many older tech's here will remember that we went through something similar caused by the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster which caused parts shortages. "JIT" cut waste by producing and supplying parts only when the process required them. When production went down, there were no large warehoused inventories to fall back on and few other plants to take up the slack.

[techsxge]

Re: New Konica TN324K oem toner

Sounds about right, that was after the 2018/2019 merger of Konica Minolta Supplies Manufacturing Co., Ltd. and the and Konica Minolta Supplies Manufacturing Kansai Co., Ltd.

They were looking to maximize profit and streamline cost, see quote below from 2019:

Purpose of Merger
Konica Minolta launched a Medium Term Business Plan, SHINKA 2019, in the current fiscal year to facilitate a shift to a highly profitable corporate structure.
Konica Minolta will accelerate a shift to a highly profitable corporate structure by continuing its ongoing efforts to promote next-generation manufacturing workflows, Digital Manufacturing, and by consolidating production operations to improve productivity, streamlining head office functions to enhance efficiency of indirect operations, and introducing an integrated manufacturing system for the entire process from production of materials to molding.

My take---------The explosion was in August 2021. That's over 10 month's ago. Even taking into consideration that they had to do a risk assessment and close all plants using the same toner drying process to ensure static electricity igniting the dust would not happen again.... there is no reason that 10 month's later we are still experiencing shortages. I love Konica and the Konica equipment is our favorite brand to sell and service, but they easily with a greater effort could have resolved this situation much sooner.

Less manufacturing plants is not a good strategy. They apparently learned nothing from Japan's "Just in time supply chain" failure - many older tech's here will remember that we went through caused by the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster which caused parts shortages. It cut waste by supplying parts only as and when the process required them. When production went down, there were no large warehoused inventories to fall back on and few other plants to take up the slack.

Well the Problem is that in China they still have very very strict Covid-19 regulations. If there are any Staff allowed to work at the moment, it would not be all of them. Even having more manufacturing plants would not make a different in this case. Now given that they might need to reconstruct certain machines and/or storage rooms, which again costs lots of time and takes staff members, i could see why they have problems making new toner.

[REGSIS]

Re: New Konica TN324K oem toner

I've seen this since early/mid 2020. A call to my supplie (Olivetti / KM) told me that it is infact their original Toner but to reduce their own costs they stopped using the printed cartons. So all the boxes you still get as before should just be older cartons

TN321AM, TN321AC, TN324AM and TN324AC started to arrive in printed boxes with their new code.
Y still to come.
Blank boxes with printed label used for 2 years when they are short of printed one.

Boxes, bottles and toners are produced and shipped separately.
Toner is shipped in containers fom Japan worldwide.
In EU toner is assembled in France.
Toner is put in bottles and packed in boxes & distribeted all over the Europe.

So, there are printed boxes in EU and blank (with labels) in USA.
This only means boxes are manufactured separately fo different region which is logical.

[jwai]

Re: New Konica TN324K oem toner

TN321AM, TN321AC, TN324AM and TN324AC started to arrive in printed boxes with their new code.
Y still to come.
Blank boxes with printed label used for 2 years when they are short of printed one.

Boxes, bottles and toners are produced and shipped separately.
Toner is shipped in containers fom Japan worldwide.
In EU toner is assembled in France.
Toner is put in bottles and packed in boxes & distribeted all over the Europe.

So, there are printed boxes in EU and blank (with labels) in USA.
This only means boxes are manufactured separately fo different region which is logical.

I received TN324AK before, from China.

[techsxge]

Re: New Konica TN324K oem toner

TN321AM, TN321AC, TN324AM and TN324AC started to arrive in printed boxes with their new code.
Y still to come.
Blank boxes with printed label used for 2 years when they are short of printed one.

Boxes, bottles and toners are produced and shipped separately.
Toner is shipped in containers fom Japan worldwide.
In EU toner is assembled in France.
Toner is put in bottles and packed in boxes & distribeted all over the Europe.

So, there are printed boxes in EU and blank (with labels) in USA.
This only means boxes are manufactured separately fo different region which is logical.

Given that this is the truth, why does KM still refer to the Toner Factory Incident when i am asking why i cant get Toner anymore in normal Quantities?
I am from Germany, so getting the Toner out of France would logistically be way better than from Japan. And i have not recieved printed boxes anytime i ordered in large quantities. Only when i ordered up to 10 Toners i got SOME of them in prinnted boxes.

[techsxge]

Re: New Konica TN324K oem toner

I have been ordering oem (コニカミノルタ, Konika Minoruta) toner since their merger in 2003 and have never ever seen that non-retail style packaging before. Makes me think they subcontracted thru mitsubishi chemical corp or somthing to meet demand, but maybe not. Still, I was glad to get a bunch of it in. We were running low.

I'd recommend asking KM or your other dealers directly how fast they can provide you with say 100 Toners (Different machine types work, i usually order around 20 a month for each Machine Type i got out). For me i can get them more or less on time once a Month, with up to a week delay. Works perfectly for me, nearly no Toner Supply issues except for some rarer or older machines. Sometimes even have so much Toner that i started selling them to other local Dealers

[tsbservice]

Re: New Konica TN324K oem toner

toner with A have print quality problems,in my area lot of customers receive A toner ,it will damaged drum ,spill toner makes laser windows dirty,toner went to tcb short period of time

And you registered here to told us that