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.
Polychrome Corporation, a brainchild of Mr. Halpern, is now a major part of Kodak Co. and continues to live on. But the small company spirit died on Jan 1. 1998 when the company became a part of DIC-Kodak joint venture. This blog is dedicated to the memory of those who proudly call themselves "Polychromer". ..... Ken Shimazu shimazukenichi@gmail.com
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
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 ........