Harrow Kodak Factory Closing

rwreich · Apr 13, 2016

I saw this today and thought it relevant here:

http://www.getwestlondon.co.uk/news/west-london-news/estimated-250-jobs-risk-harrow-11179527

The article says that paper is produced there, but might here be greater implications?

Ken Nadvornick · Apr 13, 2016

Wow...

Dinesh · Apr 14, 2016

Ouch!

MattKing · Apr 14, 2016

A feeling of dread for all that remains of Kodak, and in particular Kodak Limited retirees.

Ken Nadvornick · Apr 14, 2016

"The moment I saw [he] was ex-Siemens followed by ex-Motorola Mobility by way of Google..."

Ken

Theo Sulphate · Apr 14, 2016

Sorry to hear about these people losing their jobs. At least there is some advance notice.

A little bit strange that demand has dropped over the last 18 months. I would've thought the demands in the film and photographic paper industry would've stabilised by now.

MattKing · Apr 14, 2016

Theo Sulphate said:
Sorry to hear about these people losing their jobs. At least there is some advance notice.

A little bit strange that demand has dropped over the last 18 months. I would've thought the demands in the film and photographic paper industry would've stabilised by now.

Harrow only makes colour photographic paper.

From the Kodak Alaris website:

Where are the manufacturing sites for the Kodak Alaris businesses?
Major manufacturing locations include:

Harrow, UK
Shanghai, Xiamen and Wuxi, China
Windsor, CO
Manaus, Brazil
Rochester, NY

How many people does Kodak Alaris employ?
More than 3,000 worldwide – and counting

Sal Santamaura · Apr 14, 2016

Theo Sulphate said:
...I would've thought the demands in the film and photographic paper industry would've stabilised by now.

Other than the infinitesimal few (compared to world population) folks here, hardly anyone gets silver halide prints now. Images have become transient things made with phones, shared on line, then gone into the ether. Even digital photographers aren't making many prints these days; that's what I hear from Mark McCormick-Goodhart of Aardenberg Imaging, who previously worked in photographic conservation at the Smithsonian and now performs independent testing of inkjet prints. I suspect demand will continue to shrink, not stabilize.

Reality sucks, but it's real.

Sal Santamaura · Apr 14, 2016

MattKing said:
...How many people does Kodak Alaris employ? More than 3,000 worldwide – and counting

Counting down, unfortunately.

skorpiius · Apr 14, 2016

When ever I read talk about no one printing anymore, I'm reminded of this Canon ad

nolanr66 · Apr 14, 2016

I think that prints in general have fallen out of favor for digital presentation such as facebook, flickr and things like that.

Poisson Du Jour · Apr 14, 2016

Earlier today I mentioned this (Harrow factory) to a colleague. We both print a lot of work to Kodak Endura Professional metallic RA-4 media (there are 6 different types offered by Kodak that I am aware of). I'm wondering where this media is manufactured? The demograrphics of who is printing, what, when and how much, are of interest to me. I can see that people out there are spending serious money on printing; some are students, but the heavy hitters are advanced amateurs and professionals. Neither group appears to be spending more than the other, but print jobbing of photographis is a major bread-and-butter item for all labs.

The lab that preps my work does a lot of other clients, too. You can see the completed work of others who are dedicated to taking their photography out to the wider public with the WOW! factor — the finished, printed work, rather than hand it over to the digital black hole, often to be looked at a couple of times a year (or less!), then forgotten in Picasa. This print work, ranging from mid-range price to several thousand dollars, framed, is coming both from digital and analogue transfer (this is consistent with the print jobbing of other full-service pro-level labs, too). But for ordinary mums and dads and kids that I think Kodak (and Canon,Fuji) relied on for printing happy snaps — no, they've long ago shifted their social sharing of photos to digital platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Blogs, etc). For this demographic, printing is seen as superfluous — even wasteful and "uncool", when a smartphone is treasured as a photo album, filing cabinet, coms console for instant sharing.

Ricardo Miranda · Apr 14, 2016

Poisson Du Jour said:
But for ordinary mums and dads and kids that I think Kodak (and Canon,Fuji) relied on for printing happy snaps — no, they've long ago shifted their social sharing of photos to digital platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Blogs, etc). For this demographic, printing is seen as superfluous — even wasteful and "uncool", when a smartphone is treasured as a photo album, filing cabinet, coms console for instant sharing.

It is true for a given 99% of the "ignoranti" population that just goes with the flow.
They are the same people that just like you have to be "trendy".

Nikon Df; Fuji X-30.

Oh dear! Another digitographer.
I rest my case my Lord!
Not good enough.

But, that is no surprise news, is it?
Kodak had submitted last year a proposal to Harrow Council for the demolition of part of the factory.
http://www.harrow.gov.uk/info/200074/planning/1558/kodak_redevelopment

EdSawyer · Apr 14, 2016

Hopefully they will continue to make Endura. Even though they stopped making the cut-sheet version , the roll versions are still better than anything else out there I think.

Wayne · Apr 14, 2016

EdSawyer said:
Hopefully they will continue to make Endura. Even though they stopped making the cut-sheet version

That explains why I searched and searched for a place to buy some and found nothing but rolls.

wiltw · Apr 14, 2016

Sal Santamaura said:
Other than the infinitesimal few (compared to world population) folks here, hardly anyone gets silver halide prints now. Images have become transient things made with phones, shared on line, then gone into the ether. Even digital photographers aren't making many prints these days; that's what I hear from Mark McCormick-Goodhart of Aardenberg Imaging, who previously worked in photographic conservation at the Smithsonian and now performs independent testing of inkjet prints. I suspect demand will continue to shrink, not stabilize.

Reality sucks, but it's real.

While the Lightjet/Durst Lambda photosensitive printing of digital files has provided us with prints not produced via inkjet technology, I note that more and more Costco print facilities are vanishing and they consolidate printing at certain stores rather than to do it at each store in an area. Sad that print volume is down so much. Methinks the 'young' photographers of today will one day come to regret their shortsightedness in their ephemeral approach to life today, when they are older and have no photos of their children on the wall or bookshelf to look at and reminisce in their old age.

OTOH, Canon purchased Lightjet, apparently in an effort to make photosensitive printing 'go away', as the Lightjet is no longer manufactured, and a look at Canon website does not disclose a current replacement....everything seems to be about wide format inkjet

Lee Rust · Apr 14, 2016

Inkjet über alles. Here in Rochester NY the sole remaining specialty photo store has switched from C-prints to inkjet, although the paper still says "Kodak" on the back.

I was told that there are hundreds of installations of this particular type of machine throughout the entirety of upstate NY, but the only service person assigned to this vast region is based in New Jersey. I asked the store manager about downtime and he looked for some wood to knock on.

Not to worry. Most of the customers in the store seem to be old folks like myself and we can probably wait for a few days if the printer needs to get fixed. What's the rush? Anybody who's really in a hurry posted their photos to Facebook a half-minute after they were taken. The only time of year when prints really need to made with any urgency is just before Christmas.

RobC · Apr 14, 2016

I wish Kodak would do us all a favour and hurry up and die instead of going through this long drawn out death scene with an announcement here and an announcement there. Why doesn't it just top itself and make a clean death of it.

DREW WILEY · Apr 14, 2016

Gotta lock horns with ya again, Sal. Every big lab which has invested in a Lightjet or Lambda or Chromira printer uses a considerable quantity of silver-based RA4 paper. This is not only a great way to print chromes too, via scans, but for VOLUME window and store displays is much more cost-effective than inkjet. Therefore the overall market is still quite big, even if snapshot photofinishing has fallen off considerably . And there are still a few full-service big labs around that offer optically enlarged big prints too. Kodak's problem is that they have a very aggressive RA4 competitor out there called Fuji. And then I recently noticed that one of the local labs had switched from Kodak to Mitsubishi paper. So apparently more than two players are still getting a piece of the action. I don't know the scope of Mitsubishi's products; it might not be anywhere as broad as it once was.
Fuji's overall choice of papers and surfaces seems to be bigger than ever, though they no longer offer cut sheet large than 20x24. Alas, I gotta cut
from rolls myself. But for those of you who wish Kodak would die - there would go the finest color neg films ever made, along with the best black
and white films for analytic or industrial purposes. Here again, the volume users aren't walking around with a Holga.

Paul Howell · Apr 14, 2016

I

MattKing said:
Harrow only makes colour photographic paper.

From the Kodak Alaris website:

Where are the manufacturing sites for the Kodak Alaris businesses?
Major manufacturing locations include:

Harrow, UK

Shanghai, Xiamen and Wuxi, China

Windsor, CO

Manaus, Brazil

Rochester, NY

How many people does Kodak Alaris employ?
More than 3,000 worldwide – and counting

I though the China and Brazil plants closed in the early 2000,s and only the UK and US plants were left.

RattyMouse · Apr 14, 2016

Sal Santamaura said:
Other than the infinitesimal few (compared to world population) folks here, hardly anyone gets silver halide prints now. Images have become transient things made with phones, shared on line, then gone into the ether. Even digital photographers aren't making many prints these days; that's what I hear from Mark McCormick-Goodhart of Aardenberg Imaging, who previously worked in photographic conservation at the Smithsonian and now performs independent testing of inkjet prints. I suspect demand will continue to shrink, not stabilize.

Reality sucks, but it's real.

Fujifilm makes far more money from photo finishing than they do digital camera sales. Far more. All over Asia, and China in particular, you can find Fujifilm kiosks where digital images are printed on Fuji Crystal Archive paper. Fujifilm sees this as a growth area. They say it many times in their financial reports and it gets MUCH more prominence than their digital cameras do.

Kodak is just abysmal at keeping their business going.

Lachlan Young · Apr 14, 2016

Greg Davis said:
Since color chemicals are now made in China, the paper may be as well.

Probably more likely the Windsor, CO location as that's where the display media & the 72" wide Endura are made I recall - the Harrow site had 200+ people essentially making one product & as soon as that product began to drop in sales... Compare that to Harman/ Ilford where a similar number make 16 or so different products & Kodak's Building 38 where a dozen or more different films are made.

To echo Drew's comment, there's a significant market in the display world that uses the Duratrans etc materials & more to the point, I suspect that a big part of Endura's sales are to labs that can use the 72" or similar wide rolls rather than the shaky minilab market (which has been dominated by Fuji here for a long time).

Alaris may have held on to Harrow for various reasons - it has/ had other coating lines for film etc, but I suspect that the sheer scale of the place, its age & its location were insurmountable costs in the longer term

Sal Santamaura · Apr 14, 2016

DREW WILEY said:
...Every big lab which has invested in a Lightjet or Lambda or Chromira printer uses a considerable quantity of silver-based RA4 paper...Therefore the overall market is still quite big, even if snapshot photofinishing has fallen off considerably . And there are still a few full-service big labs around that offer optically enlarged big prints too...

The Bay area is not the world. The US is not the world. Offering is not selling.

DREW WILEY said:
...Kodak's problem is that they have a very aggressive RA4 competitor out there called Fuji. And then I recently noticed that one of the local labs had switched from Kodak to Mitsubishi paper. So apparently more than two players are still getting a piece of the action...

A piece of the continuously shrinking action. Reality sucks, but it's real.

DREW WILEY said:
...for those of you who wish Kodak would die...

I do not now nor have I ever wished Kodak dead. However, when fantasy is pervasive, I feel compelled to inject reality.

Sal Santamaura · Apr 14, 2016

RattyMouse said:
Fujifilm makes far more money from photo finishing than they do digital camera sales...

And how do either of those business lines compare in profitability to Fuji's cosmetics and other businesses?

RattyMouse said:
...Fujifilm sees this as a growth area. They say it many times in their financial reports and it gets MUCH more prominence than their digital cameras do...

And how much growth does Fuji predict? Compared to what baseline? Compared to previous years' baselines?

RattyMouse · Apr 14, 2016

Sal Santamaura said:
And how do either of those business lines compare in profitability to Fuji's cosmetics and other businesses?

I can't recall off the top of my head, but the photofinishing business has to be 15-20% of Fuji's total business. It's not the largest, but it is substantial. Fuji is a bit player in the cosmetics world.

EDIT: I was waaaay off. I looked up the numbers and the film business is 4% of Fujifilm's total revenue. Digital cameras are 0.8%.

Sal Santamaura said:
And how much growth does Fuji predict? Compared to what baseline? Compared to previous years' baselines?

Fuji is always vague about predictions. No numbers are given. They just make it clear that this is part of the business that will drive growth into the next quarter. Photo finishing is expanding, not contracting.

Harrow Kodak Factory Closing

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