The production and delivery of monochrome and color toners have resumed following the successful acquisition of the Japanese-based Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation (MCC) by the Beijing, China-based CET Group (CET).

The battle for supremacy in the competitive global toner market has traditionally focused in Japan with several copier and printer OEMs manufacturing toner and setting the global standard benchmark for quality toners for decades.

It is no wonder that China has looked towards Japan to satisfy the need for toner products for both copiers and laser printers' growing industry to supply global demand. Several well-established Chinese companies have acquired or developed relationships with Japanese companies and seen a growth in sales as a result.

CET Group Co., Ltd, initially registered in Beijing, China in 1996 as China Eternal Copiers Technology Co., Ltd, increased its registered capital to 280 million RMB (US$) in 2016. Restructuring and a name change to CET Group have been strategic as the company continues to focus on the development and manufacture of its own brand of compatible spare parts and consumables around the world. The same charter it set out to achieve for 26 years. Apart from its toners, CET manufactured products that total more than 9,000 products, including drum units, fuser assemblies, fixing films, charge rollers, chips, and feed rollers.

The strategy to acquire MCC's pulverised toner line is core to this focus. Since 2018, CET has taken a measured and careful approach to ensure the quality of the toner would not be compromised in any way.

"In 2018, we established CET Japan and acquired the Mitsubishi Chemical's pulverized toner production line," said Steven Ma (pictured), CET's founding president and CEO. "We have been meticulous in every detail."

In 2019, CET Japan started manufacturing toner in Japan. The company strictly adhered to the QC system established by MCC which included double testing and analysis to ensure high quality and stability of all raw materials.

According to Ma, MCC has a very mature IQC system with several decades of toner production experience and management. "After the acquisition of MCC's pulverized toner production, CET strictly followed the MCC production management system and kept in close communication with all the raw material suppliers," he added. "At the same time, we invited other professional Japanese QC engineers to join our team to implement the systems accurately in the CET China toner factory."

In 2020, the toner factory was relocated to China with production getting underway with the assistance of the Japanese experts. "We brought experienced technicians in from China and Korea as well as Japan," Ma said. "All have worked previously for the three top toner manufacturers in the world. We commenced production trials with testing and analysis in real-time."

To ensure the same quality toners are produced, engineers from MCHT (Mitsubishi Chemical High Technical), experienced in production and quality control, helped adjust and transition the equipment in China, to ramp up the tonnage output.

Ma says production has now fully resumed with world-class quality toners being delivered to customers worldwide. "We have already started shipping toners suitable for use in Konica Minolta, Canon, Ricoh and HP devices. Plus, color toners for use in Canon and Konica Minolta devices will be available soon."

Our customers can be reassured of our toner products," Ma said. "We follow the 6S Quality Assurance model from MCC in Japan where we have:

• The same production using the same machines from Japan;

• The same raw materials from Japan;

• The same team from Japan;

• The same IQC, PQC and FQC systems from Japan;

• The same formulas from Japan;

• The same analysis measuring equipment from Japan, the USA and Europe.

The annual capacity is already about 5000 tons and Ma said the quality matches or is even beyond that of the OEM. "Compatible toners for Kyocera, Canon, HP and Ricoh are at 1200 tons each, annually, and with 400 tons of KCMY toners."

Reported by David Gibbons from (The Recycling Times)