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An Episode Behind Product Development: Compact Inkjet All-in-One, an Embodiment of Team Brother's Overall Capabilities
In September 2011, the new compact inkjet All-in-One models were released in Japan with the catch phrase of "a third choice for consumers looking for printers," and made headlines for their high performance at reasonable prices. Here we take a look behind the scenes during Brother's all-out efforts to develop and launch these products.
Building a high-speed engine into home printers
The new compact inkjet All-in-One models released in September 2011.
In 2009, Brother developed the revolutionary A3 color multi-function center. The new high-speed engine built into this product increased the speed of printing color A3 sheets by 2.2 times compared with conventional models while achieving outstanding image quality. The business market was highly impressed.
The next step was to develop home printers with a similar high-speed engine. However, the innovative engine alone, which is the heart of printers, does not put Brother products ahead of its competitors; the size, design, multi-functionality, and price must also be far more attractive. The competition in the home printer market is even fiercer than in the business market. The project team for the new compact inkjet All-in-One models consisted of groups responsible for engine design, main unit design including the document scanning/feeding unit (ADF), appearance design, software development, and production technology development. Led by respective development leaders, these groups worked together to achieve ambitious goals.
Tripling the printing speed with a high-speed engine and continuous feeding mechanism
A conventional head
A new head
Printing speed remarkably increased by the high-speed engine.
The second page starts being fed while the first page is still being output. The continuous feeding mechanism boosts the printing speed.
The group in charge of the engine design took the technology demonstrated with the A3 color multi-function centers and applied them to compact inkjet All-in-One. The nozzle layout density and number of nozzles were doubled, while the ink head movement frequency was halved. As a result, the printing speed has been significantly increased while maintaining excellent image quality.
In addition, the continuous feeding mechanism (which starts feeding the second page while still outputting the first page) significantly reduces the time wasted in paper feeding and output. As a result, the speed of A4 normal paper color printing has more than tripled compared with conventional models of Brother compact inkjet All-in-One.
Eliminating the last few millimeters of dead space to make the product 1 mm slimmer
Compactness is non-negotiable.
Reviews were made to shave every last millimeter in order to combine both label printing and double-sided printing functions into a small unit.
The members of the main unit design group (responsible for scanning/feeding units, etc.) worked on incorporating the new label printing function for CDs, DVDs, and BDs (Blu-ray discs), in addition to the copying/scanning/double-sided printing functions, in the limited space. Compact inkjet All-in-One's compactness, which is one of its main features, cannot be sacrificed to increase functionality, and yet label printing is a must-have for customers.
A single ink head is used to print both paper sheets and discs which are of different thickness. So, to insert a label tray, the ink head (the upper unit) should be raised, or the roller unit (the lower unit) should be lowered. But this design affects the document feeding mechanism for double-sided printing. Meanwhile, the product height of 18 centimeters cannot be achieved unless the scanner and scanning/feeding unit at the top for copying are made slimmer. To solve such issues, the design team repeatedly reviewed the design drawings to use every last millimeter of height and clearance, held many discussions, and produced many prototypes. Eventually, the team solved the challenge by coming up with a unique mechanism: when the tray's inlet is opened, different parts transform via an interlocked mechanism, without changing the overall height.
A great effort was also made to create a sophisticated design. Based on a product design survey in the planning phase, the product's top surface was made completely flat to harmonize with users' home interior design. Different decorative patterns were prepared for the European and North/South American markets and for the Japanese market. Also, a novel design allows different sheets to be placed on the same parts and sandwiched by semitransparent resin covers, so as not to increase the number of parts.
Enhancing product appeal with a cloud connection
Making photos and web services more enjoyable via connection with the cloud and mobile terminals.
When the various groups were in the last stages of the product design, a major decision was made in the product strategy to enable compact inkjet All-in-One to connect to the cloud. Specifically, links with mobile devices make photos more enjoyable, and compact inkjet All-in-One now supports web services (whose number of users is rapidly increasing). For example, by taking photos with a smartphone, transferring and storing them in the cloud, the photos can be shared with friends and printed with a compact inkjet All-in-One without a PC.
To achieve this, however, Brother had to sign contracts with various web service companies. Interfaces (standards for intermediate forms of exchanging data) were also needed to cope with web services of different specifications. Nevertheless, cloud compatibility was sure to significantly increase compact inkjet All-in-One's appeal. Thus, the Software Development Dept. took the lead in overcoming the challenges, in close cooperation with the new business development division and the Legal & General Affairs Dept. (in charge of contractual services), while the product design was still in progress.
Solving problems to ship compact inkjet All-in-One worldwide
Products are shipped worldwide from China.
In the spring of 2011, the quality and production stability of the new compact inkjet All-in-One's models were evaluated for several weeks at a factory in Shenzhen City, Guangdong Province, China. Finally, a meeting was held to judge whether to release the product, for products are released only after passing the screening process. Rigorous screening was conducted in a tense atmosphere, and then … the executive officer in charge of quality gave the green light for release!
All the project leaders sighed with relief. "In this development project, we had to battle with the product dimensions all the time. We asked suppliers' factories to make various component changes right up to the last minute. We can offer the new compact inkjet All-in-One models to customers with so many functions and yet at reasonable prices by using our accumulated technologies and resources," said one of the development leaders.
One of the dealers who attended the compact inkjet All-in-One presentation meeting told us, "Brother's overall capabilities have finally come to fruition," while an editor of an IT magazine commented in amazement, "Multi-function centers are evolving incredibly quickly."
Compact inkjet All-in-One gives customers "a third choice" by presenting new, enjoyable features with a single printer. Now, the development staff members are working on the next challenge to deliver more fun and surprises through Brother products to many customers.
Staff involved in developing the new compact inkjet All-in-One models. Many divisions, group companies, and suppliers also worked with enthusiasm.
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