Japanese office machines manufacturer Ricoh has announced that it intends to contstuct a new €150 million building at its Ricoh Technology Center in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. Construction will start in August and should be completed by August 2010. The number of employees at the Technology Center will increase from 3,000 to 5,000.

At present the center is engaged in elemental technology development, design, product evaluation and manufacturing technology for state-of–the-art color products. The expansion will enable it to incorporate the software development department, the inkjet technology development department and the supply development department.

The expansion is part of Ricoh’s quest to become "the No.1 production engineering company.”