Hitachi Creates New Structure for European Operations

Effective from 1st April 2002, Hitachi Home Electronics (Europe) Ltd. will be integrated into Hitachi Europe Ltd.

The two business groups:

• Digital Media Group (Plasma TVs and monitors, LCD projectors and monitors, DVD Cameras, etc.) and;
  
• Consumer Products Group (room air conditioning, floor care, white goods, etc.)

will operate alongside Hitachi Europe’s existing business groups.

These two newly focused business groups will ensure that the Hitachi brand is effectively promoted across key European markets. Furthermore, Hitachi in Europe will benefit from the design excellence provided by Hitachi Europe’s Design Centre headquartered in Milan.

Hitachi will now be well placed to meet the future demands in the home and digital media markets in the UK and continental Europe, by focusing on new and emerging technologies.

Mr Tsukada, Managing Director of Hitachi Europe Ltd. comments, “As well as reflecting Hitachi’s global strategy to concentrate on higher value products, our new organisation has been designed to enable us to continue serving our customers to the highest standard. The creation of this new structure will be achieved seamlessly and will not cause any disruption to our business.”

More On Line Functionality for UK Spares Account Holders

For UK account holders there are additional facilities now available for on line inquiry of spares orders and order history.

Also now available on line is the facility to delete and add lines to existing orders.

Remember the advantages of on line parts ordering are:

• Access available 6.30am to 7.00pm 7 days a week.
• Parts pricing and stock availability.
• Same day despatch for stock items ordered before 1.00pm.
• Status check of your orders and order history inquiry.
• Allows limited order amendments.

For further details please see our Parts Orders information page.

Manuals Now on the Net.

User Guides / Instruction Books:

As an improvement to our customer services we have been building a comprehensive library of product User Manuals in electronic format for most of our products sold during the last seven years. These User Manuals are now available for you to download, view and print free of charge from the Customer Support section of this web site.

Now that all our new service data is published only in electronic format (see our ESTA page), we are phasing out the supply of our older paper service manuals and replacing them with scanned images. These files are available to download free of charge by authorised service personnel from the Technical Service section of this web site.

Another addition to the ESTA CD-ROM Technical Library is published - ESTA D3.

The majority of the technical information for our new products is now issued in electronic format, and we have now moved to our third CD-ROM in the ESTA D series.

ESTA D3 issue 1 is a completely new CD-ROM from the Hitachi Technical Support Group which complements and should be kept together with the other CD's from our Technical Library - D1 issue 4, D2 issue 1 and S1 issue 1.

As well as including our latest products, D3 Issue 1 has a new version of the ESTA software which should be installed on your PC by following the instructions supplied with the CD.

The ESTA software has been further developed to provide:

• An optimised index file to improve the ESTA start up time.
• Clearer indication of active links and the presence of local notes.
• Additional links to the Hitachi Service web site.

For more information about the Hitachi ESTA CD-ROM's, please see our ESTA web pages, and contact your usual supplier for details and availability.

UK Spare Parts Ordering Now Live on the Net!

All Hitachi UK service account holders can now gain access on-line to our spare parts computer system.

For more details please see our Parts Orders information page.

UK Spare Parts Ordering coming to this site very soon.

After fifteen years of faithful service Viewdata is retiring to be replaced by Internet access for spare parts ordering for all Hitachi UK service account holders.

This new facility is expected to go live by the end of this month and will be immediately available to all existing Viewdata users. If you are an Hitachi UK account holder but not currently using Viewdata, please contact us to be set up for this facility.

The advantages of on line access are:

• Available 6.30am to 7.00pm 6 days a week.
• On-line pricing and stock availability.
• Same day despatch for stock items ordered before 3.00pm.
• On-line status check of your orders.

Access will be via the Technical page of this site.

As we include more and more technical information for our latest products we have now moved to our second CD-ROM in the ESTA D series, and are pleased to announce the arrival of ESTA D2 issue 1 which is an additional disk to complement ESTA D1 issue 4.

This is a completely new CD-ROM from the Hitachi Technical Support Group and should be kept together with the other CD's from our Technical Library, i.e. D1 issue 4, and S1 issue 1.

As well as including our latest products, D2 Issue 1 has an improved version of the ESTA software which should be installed on your PC by following the instructions supplied with the CD. The new software will:

• Provide more reliable downloads, removing the possibility of intermittent errors.
• Allow any unwanted files to be 'skipped' during download.
• Offer a choice of Link zooming behaviour to suit individual preferences (see the 'Options' tab within the 'Configure' option).
• Index all models with available service documents (currently three CD-ROM's - S1 issue 1, D1 issue 4 and D2 issue 1, and from the Internet).

It is now more than two years since we launched the first Hitachi 'European Spares and Technical Assist' (ESTA) CD-ROM to replace the traditional printed manual, and we are pleased to find that the feedback from our users has been very positive. We have noticed how more of our competitors are adopting similar technical information systems which must be further endorsement of the principle of easily accessible dynamic data to assist technicians when servicing consumer products.

For more information about the Hitachi ESTA CD-ROM's, please see our ESTA web pages, and contact your usual supplier for details and availability.

We have yet again been able to implement improvements to our service CD-ROM, which contains all the information that was held on issue 3, together with updates, plus the service information for more of our products released during the past six months.

As well as the addition of further products, D1 Issue 4 now has the following new features:

• Improved model downloads & updates via the Internet. Fast download of individual data sections available - typically one to two minutes.
• Latest technical tips information with improved content and interactive links.
• Index of all models with available service documents (currently two CD-ROM's - S1 issue 1 and D1 issue 4, and from the Internet).
• Improved Notes function showing where notes are available.

This CD-ROM from the Hitachi Technical Support Group continues to be an exciting dynamic service tool which, if you haven't used before, we recommend you take time out to explore and discover all the benefits it has to offer. The ability to update you with all our latest information via the internet means that this issue does not become outdated before the next issue is available.

For more information about the Hitachi ESTA CD-ROM's, please see our ESTA web page, and contact your usual supplier for details and availability.

This site will bring you information about various aspects of Hitachi Service, and it is our intention to develop it to embrace the exciting opportunities that the World Wide Web offers.

You will see from our European Service & Technical Assist (ESTA) pages that we are already using the Internet to keep Hitachi service providers up to date with dynamic service data designed to help with the maintenance of our products.

Hitachi Home Electronics (Europe) Ltd.
European Service Operations, UK.