China Connection Part 1, the Beginning

A successful and long lasting Chinese connection started by a call from RIT professor in early 1980'.      He had a Chinese graduate student working for him for a year and he wanted to visit a presensitized plate manufacturer before he returned home.        The professor called 3M but they refused and he then turned to Polychrome.             Unlike 3M, Polychrome was quite open to visitors; Mr. Halpern was always proud to show what we have achieved and this time was no exception.        The Chinese engineer was from a research institute in China and Simon and Jenchi showed all what we had.        In 1983 a request came from the China's National Chemical Construction Company (CNCCC) for a license.        Simon, Bill Saltzman and I were in Japan in 1984 for a visit to DIC when further call came for a meeting.       We three went to Beijing for a preliminary discussion.         (China then was smog free, basically no cars, a lot of bicycles and  people in army style dark clothing)  Here are some pictures.

See my report which appeared on the Polyworld Vol 4, No. 4; click HERE

Mr. Halpern in action

 Thanks to Doug Chu, we now can see Mr. Halpern in action.     In late 60's  Fuji was struggling to convince Japanese printers to switch away from the traditional "deep etch" plate to Fuji's new presensitized printing plate.               Dr. Seiichi Ooba organized a three city lecture series and asked Mr. Halpern to be the main speaker to speak on the US printing industry where PS plate was widely in use.      This video was transferred from a Super 8 movie (remember?) and has a silent movie quality.    It starts with a street scene in Tokyo (see old cars) heading towards Fuji office where we had a bit of practice and then to a Fuji sponsored meeting where hundreds of major printers were present.            There is no sounds but you can feel the full energy of Mr. Halpern.  

Dr. Takao Nakayama

Until Polychrome became a part of Dainippon Ink and Chemicals., I was the only one Japanese in the entire company of at one time close to 5000 employees.      But for a brief period of 1977-78, Dr. Takao Nakayama joined me as the second Japanese employee.          He came to us through introduction by my professor Dr. Inoue who knew we were interested in adding another chemist in Yonkers Lab.           Tak received his doctorate under Prof. Inoue and proved himself to be  a very innovative chemist.        Rather than starting to work for a domestic company or staying in the university lab, he chose to join us but he had to return to Japan in early 1979 to attend his family matter.            He then joined Fuji Photo Film R&D group in Yoshida factory.     We saw him occasionally during our periodic technical exchange visit to Fuji.         He then took early retirement from Fuji and joined the faculty of Tokai University.         He has recently retired from the post but still enjoys  helping conduct scientific experiments for younger students.         We met for lunch in May 2013 reminiscing the time he worked in Yonkers and the good memory he has for the R&D group.

Ken Shimazu, Prof. Inoue, Dr. Nakayama in late  1970's

Annual Report 1985

Here is the 1985 Annual Report       See detail HERE.

Digital Pied Piper in Brazil

Bob Hallman  preached and practiced that R&D is best suited for the advanced marketing function.      He has made numerous visits to customers and built strong connection with major printers' technical managers and management personnels.         Through his review of current and up and coming technology, he was able to enlighten important customers as well as getting first hand customer requirements so that we can anticipate customer needs ahead of time.            I tagged along with him from time to time to learn his approach and messages and by the time he was promoted to the president of Polychrome, I was able to pick up some of his load myself although he continued his "advanced marketing" effort in his new role.     Here is the flyer of my visit to Brazil  in 1997 to promote Polychrome and our commitment to digital platemaking.     If you can not decipher the content, it is because it is in Portuguese!       Thanks Bert!

IJP 1000, Bob Hallman and Victor Lopez... way ahead of time

Bob Hallman was a special kind of Research Director.    Unlike his predecessors  at Polychrome,  he came with experience in various and broad discipline such as business, marketing, consulting, etc.     Having run his own company must have developed his keen sense of customer needs.      He often tried to cultivate good relationship with customers so that he can anticipate future customer needs and also provide assistance where needed immediately.         He generally directed R&D through his informal talk about his visits to customers and what he told them to watch out.         We listened carefully and tried to come up with a solution to meet his and customers' expectation for  future products.        His leadership can be found in Polychrome's drive towards digital platemaking, non process platemaking and others.         The platemaking through inkjet technology was in his list of future technology.     We had collaboration with Sun Chemical R&D group to develop suitable technology.     There was also Victor Lopez.       He was in the marketing department but he had a keen eyes and interests in new technology.         We became quite close through various start up projects which he loved and Bob approved of.         One of the project was the platemaking system using inkjet technology.      He identified a company in West Coast with large format inkjet imaging system capability and worked hard to modify it into a platemaking system.         The IJP-1000 with  large format...30 x 40 inch plate size was thus born and market tested.       Unfortunately the technology was still in its infancy and the precision and resolution needed for such platemaking was lacking.        We moved on to focus rapidly expanding thermal platemaking technology.           Viktor also moved on to have his own company applying the inkjet technology to a new field of digital silkscreen printing platemaking.         Bob was right in predicting the growth of inkjet technology.        While not during the Polychrome days, it is flourishing in various areas of printing today.           We can say that we were there first!

Mimeograph stencil which made early Polychrome

Polychrome's first product was mimeograph ink.         The first Polychrome logo consists of three ink knives suggesting the origin of the company business.          The business soon shifted to producing mimeographic stencil master.          The stencil master had a paper base similar to the paper used in tea bag and it was impregnated with a soft coating which on typewriter head impact is squeezed out of the place creating a void which allowed the ink to goes through to imprint on a receiving paper.    The first floor of the original on the Hudson building hud numbers of coater/impregnator to coat the master.      We were making masters for the Gestetner Company then no. 1 in stencil duplicator under their label as well as for others.            It was said that the automated stencil master making was started by Polychrome and that Gestetner copied the production process for their Great Britain factory.      And indeed when I visited Gestetner in London, I did witness production lines very similar to ours.        Since the stencil master was a soft and easy to break material, it was protected with layers of paper and plastic film.          The first floor of the "on the Hudson" building was fully occupied with numbers of automated machines to slice, cut, mount, punch all the layers to produce final package.
This stencil master for typewriter was first threatened by the new type of stencil master using stylus discharge to create holes in a specially made master.         You no longer needed to worry mistyping the word to ruin the stencil master.       You just needed to make a clean copy and put it on a scanner / imager to create an electronically produced stencil master.          The blow came when the electrostatic copying machine made inroad and the messy stencil process became thing of the past.       By then Polychrome was well on the way to be one of the major offset plate company.
(Does anyone have Polychrome brand or Gestetner brand  stencil master?     Please send me a digital picture so that I can attach it here.    Thanks.)