RAMSEY, NJ--(Marketwired - November 15, 2016) - In celebration of American Education Week, Konica Minolta proudly announces innovative solutions it has successfully brought to school districts nationwide that have effectively addressed the challenges of document management, privacy and productivity. This, in turn, has saved districts significant amounts of money and given teachers more time to spend teaching rather than grappling with high volumes of documents.

American Education Week is an annual campaign sponsored by the National Education Association (NEA).

Leveraging its extensive experience in document management and innovative educational technologies, Konica Minolta has helped schools overcome issues that negatively impact staff and students.

Konica Minolta's sales team proposed an additional revenue stream regarding 3D printers to the Center for Hands-On Learning (Rio Rancho, NM) for the organization's popular learning kits that are sold worldwide. This non-profit organization -- founded by teachers -- took on copying jobs for local businesses to help fund its initiative, significantly increasing its copy volume. Konica Minolta was chosen to address this issue, but then identified an opportunity for enhancing the learning kits with innovative technology. This allowed many schools to provide 3D technology to their students that they hadn't offered previously, greatly enriching the students' learning experience.

Konica Minolta saved more than $20,000 for Palo Verde Community College District of Blythe, CA, by effectively fulfilling its staff's desire for needed features that would greatly enhance their productivity. They wanted to be able to print, scan to email, fax, track and monitor print usage by department for chargeback purposes, and scan a PDF into other applications so the document could be edited. The district responded by choosing the Konica Minolta bizhub™ C654e configured with PrintPath, a print management solution, and ScanPath, a capture and route solution. This not only gave the staff more quality time to spend teaching their students rather than daunted by time-consuming document management, but it reduced its copier costs from $58,308 to $37,650 -- a savings of $20,658.

Konica Minolta brought higher reliability multifunction products and stopped the monetary bleeding for Dan Distrola, the purchasing agent for the Rialto Unified School District, in Rialto, CA. He inherited very costly and unreliable MFPs upon his hiring and made it his mission to significantly reduce costs and excessive downtime that was hurting the teachers and office staff. His decision to purchase Konica Minolta bizhubs saw their reliability improve the district's capabilities such as scanning and color scanning. It has also provided an improved and easier flow of documents to the print shop via RSA's QDirect, which integrates with Konica Minolta bizhubs and allows school staff to scan and submit their jobs to the print shop right from the bizhub's control panel. This convenience is priceless for teachers and administrators who need to create and print colorful lessons or mandatory paperwork as part of their job responsibilities.

"The tagline for this American Education Week is 'Great Public Schools: A Basic Right and Our Responsibility' and it reflects the NEA's vision of calling upon all Americans to do their part in making public schools great for every child so that they can grow and achieve in the 21st century," noted Stephanie Keer, PhD, national solutions manager, education and government, Konica Minolta Business Solutions USA Inc., and adjunct professor at New York University. "As an educator, I know how invaluable time- and money-saving solutions are to teachers and students, and I see how these organizations are strong examples of bringing the NEA's vision to fruition."

About Konica Minolta
Konica Minolta Business Solutions U.S.A., Inc. is reshaping and revolutionizing the Workplace of the Future^™ (www.reshapework.com). With our comprehensive portfolio, we deliver solutions to leverage mobility, cloud services, and optimize business processes with workflow automation. Our All Covered IT Services division offers a range of IT strategy, support, and network security solutions across all verticals. Konica Minolta has been recognized as the#1 Brand for Customer Loyalty in the MFP Office Copier Market by Brand Keys for nine consecutive years and is proud to be ranked on the Forbes 2016 America's Best Employers list. Konica Minolta, Inc. has been named to the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index for five years in a row. We partner with our customers to give shape to ideas and work to bring value to our society. For more information, please visit: www.CountOnKonicaMinolta.com and follow Konica Minolta on Facebook,YouTube, and Twitter @konicaminolta.us

About National Education Association
The National Education Association (NEA) is the nation's largest professional employee organization, representing more than 3 million elementary and secondary teachers, higher education faculty, education support professionals, school administrators, retired educators and students preparing to become teachers. Learn more at www.nea.org.