This year alone, Ricoh and its branches in various countries have worked on generative design, composite 3D printing, materials, and more, and in 2019, Ricoh bought 34.5% of Baltimore-based bioprinting company Elixirgen Scientific, Inc.
Though Japan-based Ricoh has been working with 3D printing since 2014, it wasn’t until 2017 that the multinational imaging and electronics company announced a shift in focus to AM technology, and shift it has. RICOH 3D for Healthcare offers a turnkey and cost effective solution that can drastically expand access to 3D models and allow healthcare providers at any size facility to learn from and inform the overall patient experience,” Gary Turner, Managing Director, Additive Manufacturing, North America, Ricoh USA, Inc., explained in a press release. “Currently, access to 3D-printed models is limited to very few healthcare organizations, meaning the vast majority of clinicians – and their patients – cannot benefit from this critical tool. With easier access to custom, patient-specific anatomic replicas, physicians will be able to better connect with their patients over complex surgical procedures, and get a closer look at what they’ll be working on in the operating room as well.
It seems this partnership is continuing, as today Ricoh USA has announced RICOH 3D for Healthcare, a new workflow solution that integrates with IBM iConnect ® Access from IBM Watson Health to make it easier to develop, design, and fabricate accurate 3D printed anatomic models. partnered with enterprise imaging solution IBM Watson Health to develop an end-to-end solution for 3D printing anatomical models.