Polyworld vol 6 number 2 Fall 1987

Here is the 1987 Fall Polyworld

for details click HERE

Proxy statement May 5, 1977

Here is the proxy statement published for the May 5, 1977 Annual Shareholder's meeting.  

 See detail   HERE

Annual Report 1977

Here is the Annual Report 1977

Click HERE for details.

Early Days of Osterode

In one of our monthly luncheon get together, Simon Chu reminisced events in early Osterode days.    Mr. Halpern recognized the importance of Germany as a center for the printing industry and arranged Polychrome's first appearance at the Drupa show in Düsseldorf in 1960.         While Jerry O'Conner and Simon Chu were demonstrating small duplicator plates  which were then made by hand dipping cut sheets in various tanks,  Mr. Halpern together with Seth Cross, who spoke German, found a dealer; Mr. Feist to set up a joint venture to open a factory in Freiheit in Osterode.        Mr. Feist apparently had a small plate factory in Berlin and knew the location as it was on his way to his vacation in Harz mountain.     After looking around various locations such as Wurm and Wiesbarden, Mr. Halpern was happy to have found a good location in Osterode at the foot of Harz mountain as he thought it would provide a good source of clean water needed for the factory.         It turns out later, as told by former Bremen resident Klaus Zimmerman that the water in Osterode came from Brement!

Mr. Feist had Mr. Aurich as his partner.      Mr. Aurich was a technical person and  with his son Gunther Aurich set up the original Freiheit factory.      This explains why original Polychrome factory there was called Aufa-Polychrome.

The first product was a smooth plate similar to what was made in US and had experienced severe walk off problem.      Simon was asked to go to Osterode to solve the problem and quickly found solution in stabilizing the walk off issue using a grained base.       This was the time Mr. Halpern sought out Ilford for help financially and otherwise.           ER Townley who later in 1966 came to work for Polychrome arranged an investment and sent Pat Heaney to Osterode to manage the ailing factory.     Pat Heaney and Simon made a crucial move to offer a sizable volume to AB Dick Co.  at close to a cost so that it would allow continuous  production of sizable volume and lower the overhead burden.      This stabilized the quality of products produced immensely and the long journey to the profitable European operation was underway.

We moved from Freiheit factory to Osterode location as we needed space for more graining and continuous line  and then to Katzenstein  for a larger production line where the current factory stands.          Some may recall the mushroom factory in Katzenstein where we stored finished plate for sometime..... an inauspicious start of the big Katzenstein factory!

According to the published Polychrome history, the Aufa-Polychrome was set up in Berlin.      Apparently There was a very small Aufa factory in Berlin and the office may have been set up there.       It was for  making small duplicator elecro-grain type plates, but not coated......was sold as base for diffusion transfer, etc. and other printing methods.  Simon says; not 100% sure because we were not interested in such business …..only in the future of PS plates which was just opening..........probably the factory was on a verge of closing, if not closed by the time of Drupa as they did not have a booth......................just carried some samples to Dusseldorf and showed them around.......when we brought a sheet or two back to Yonkers, coated them with diazo (neg) ...they did not desensitize, just stayed yellow and took ink all over....the exposed area ( purple??) and yellow non-image area....      also......in fact during working at  Freiheit, went to Berlin on week-ends, but never came up to visit a/The Factory/probably because it was no more.....     more minutia for the record..........says Simon.

And the Polychrome history book says;

1962  Participated in establishment of Aufa-Pollychrome Offsetplatten GmbH in West Berlin to manufacture offset plates and chemistry for distribution in Western Europe, the near East and Africa.

1964  Severed relations with Aufa GmbH and relocated the German company to West Germany under the name Polychrome GmbH.

Quantum 830 and My Nguyen

In May 1996, US CTX team of Sal Lombardo, Duane Mayberry and Scot Elliot went to Europe and found the CTX is the number one in Computer-to-plate market and had almost 65% market share.   We did not have similar estimate for US but at the Viewpoint Conference two out of  four user panel said they used CTX... a 50% share perhaps.         On the other hand following the announcement by Creo/Kodak cooperation in "thermal"system, RR Donnelley asked us to come up with alternative "preheat thermal" plate.           They may have asked other manufacturers as well but we were the only one in a short period to come up with an alternative.         Dr. My Nguyen, who joined us only a short while back, undertook the challenge and showed very quickly two out of four components used in Kodak preheat system can be replaced with new compound to produce an infringement free preheat type thermal plate.       In fact the formulation he came up with was much better in performance so that its components were later incorporated in Kodak-Polychrome's improved preheat thermal plate.   The plate was named Quantum 830 and within a year of introduction took almost 20% of thermal digital thermal market.         This may be the finest example of how a small group of R&D personnel can achieve an amazing results.          The team headed by dedicated My Nguyen took almost all the activities in their hand, R&D, scale up in Columbus factory, quality control, "qualification'" at Creo, field trial at customers, trouble shooting, etc.          Since the new information was shared quickly and thoroughly within a small group, actions to improve came very quickly.         My Nguyen was a quick achiever and liked the fast pace of development at Polychrome.       He could not stand the red tapes in a large company we became in Kodak-Polychrome joint venture and within 6 month of JV left the company to form his own company .... before he left he has made more contributions but that is another story and another uploads ........

This preheat type thermal plate was the first of series of thermal products we came up with as the successor to the pioneering CTX and established us as the really major plate company.       The transition from CTX to thermal was smooth and after the Kodak-Polychrome Joint Venture, CTX was phased out in early 2000' in favor of thermal products having served its role as the trail brazer for us brilliantly.

Annual Report 1976

Cover of the 1976 Annual Report features Polychrome building facing towards the Hudson River with many of us lining up the entire windows.       Click HERE for the whole content.