Solagen Process Impovement at Kodak - Operations Paper

-R E Bohn

Eastman Kodak, established in 1878, produced 10.8 billion in net sales in the year 1982. Its Kodak Park Division manufacturing plant in Rochester NY had more than 30,000 employees. The plant produces a wide array of products including film, photographic paper and more than 900 chemicals used in film processing. The existing Gelatin making process was a 150 year old process that required an unscientific approach of measurement and monitoring.

The current process for achieving quality output is non- standardized and requires a substantial amount of time and due diligence to produce a final product. The determination of a quality product during the liming step was estimated by looking at the color of gelatin and dipping one’s fingers into the liming pit. The liming was a highly variable process (Exhibit A) where experience and educated guesses played an important role. The next steps of washing, cooking filtration, evaporation and deionization were flexible processes knowledge that was handed down from supervisor to supervisor. There were no systematic tests for quality control and measurement for ensuring consistent products was often evasive. As a result, a high level of batch variation occurred which resulted in extra work related to storage and blending of different product lots to provide consistent gelatin to internal customers.

The general manager’s reference to the process of film making as “witchcraft” is more of a comment on existing methodologies employed at the Kodak plant for producing gelatin. The existing quality control was nothing more than simple tests of sight, feel and smell, which may have work in the past, but will require more standardization moving forward. Currently, competition has much tighter process control and advancements in technology which further illustrates the ineffectiveness of Kodak’s current processes. The existing process appears to be a job shop with the specialized technical knowledge in the...