Dwaynes Processing Goes Global


Gone Global

By Jamie Willey

Parsons Sun

A recent decision by Kodak has left Dwayne's Photo Service as the only facility in the Western Hemisphere to develop a certain kind of film.

Eastman Kodak Co. this summer decided to consolidate all processing for Kodachrome slide film for North America and Europe at the Parsons facility. A company in Switzerland had been processing Kodachrome film in Europe, but Kodak discovered it would be more cost effective to have the film shipped to Dwayne's to be processed here. The change was made effective on Saturday.

Grant Steinle, vice president of operations for Dwayne's, said the decline in film use during the last decade brought on by the use of digital cameras helped lead Kodak to the consolidation decision.

When Dwayne's began developing the color transparency film in the early 1990s, it was one of many labs throughout the U.S. that did so, Steinle said. There were labs in Dallas, Indianapolis and Miami. Over the years, those labs quit processing Kodachrome film because of its decline in use.

Dwayne's became a Kodak-certified Kodachrome processor in 2004, and Kodak later shut down a lab it owned and contracted with Dwayne's for all Kodachrome processing in North America.

Steinle said Parsons' location in the middle of the country is the reason Dwayne's remains the only processor of Kodachrome in the U.S.

"Probably because the business we're doing is for the entire country, so it makes just as much sense to ship it here to Parsons than to Dallas or anywhere else," Steinle said.

Kodachrome, which was invented in the 1930s, is an older version of modern film, Steinle said. The dye for Kodachrome film is introduced during processing instead of having the dye in the film.

Dwayne Steinle, owner and president of Dwayne's, said Kodachrome is Kodak's flagship film. Despite having newer technology, the film remains a mainstay on the market because it is the film preferred by archivists because it lasts longer. National Geographic uses the film, he said.

The consolidation of Europe's processing business into Dwayne's means the Parsons company and a company in Japan are the only two businesses in the world to process Kodachrome film for Kodak. The machine Dwayne's uses is larger than the one used at the Japanese lab, so Dwayne's workers may be the only in the world to consistently work on such a machine.

Dwayne Steinle said in addition to getting regular shipments of film from North America and Europe, the company also gets film by regular mail from South America and other parts of the world. The Japanese lab can't process Kodachrome movie film, so Dwayne's also processes that film by mail from Japan and other part of Asia.

"I think it's quite a feather in our cap that Kodak has this much confidence in us to let us do this program with them," Dwayne Steinle said. "We feel quite fortunate that they chose us to do that."

Dwayne's hired seven people to fill European orders. The company had been processing about 1,500 rolls of Kodachrome a day. The European orders have added about another 1,000.

"We'll be doing several thousand a day, two to three thousand a day. The volume varies from day to day. It depends on how many we get in each day," Grant Steinle said.

Film coming from Europe gets to the Parsons plant in one day. Workers can usually process the film the same day and ship it out. The developed slides take two days on the return trip to Europe. The time difference in shipping to and from Parsons is caused by the time difference between the U.S. and Europe.

Dwayne's, which celebrates its 50th year in business this year, now employs about 85 people, down "quite a bit" from six or seven years ago, Grant Steinle said, because of the decline in the use of film. He said Dwayne's hopes to remain at that employment level for quite some time.