19 December 2005
In August Redwood added a new printer to their line of digital schools printers, a Noritsu R2R- 1400 PRO. This printer has brought a breath of fresh air to the Redwood digital print department because of its huge appetite for photographic paper.
Redwood Photographic Laboratories, based in Colchester, Britain's oldest recorded town, is thought to be one of the UK's largest family owned Professional Photographic Laboratories. Husband and wife team John & Ann Williams started Redwood in 1974.
Redwood fast became one of the leading Laboratories in East Anglia and, in 1995, took over another large Prolab, Colchester Colour Imaging (CCI). That was started by ex shipboard photographers in 1968, initially processing the re-orders from cruise ship photographers. That buy out secured Redwood's future and established the business as the largest family owned lab in the area.
John, a trained scientist, has always looked to take the lead when it comes to technological investments so Redwood installed the very first Kodak digital printer in the UK in 1996. They have also been the Beta test site and have worked closely with Kodak and Halse Systems in research and development of the Pro series software. Ever since that time Redwood have invested heavily in new and innovative systems and technologies.
Redwood's business is split into three distinct categories. The CCI department provides the corporate market with modular and pop up displays, advertising banners, design and point of sale units. This, of course, is of huge benefit to the main lab's photographic based business, as marketing, design and exhibition stands are made available at heavily discounted prices to photographers who use Redwood.
The second string to the Redwood bow is housed in the main Redwood building on Colchester's prestigious Severalls Park Industrial estate. It is the new wholesale distribution business. This came about due to the unfortunate loss of the local wholesalers Colchester Photographic Wholesale (CPW). Ironically CPW was started by CCI in 1974, but had to sell the wholesalers on as they didn't have the finances to keep both the lab and the wholesale business going in those early days. This is an example of just how unpredictable business can be, as this part of the business seems to have gone full circle.
As the third piece of the puzzle, Redwood Laboratories provides social and commercial photographers with traditional B & W, C41 and E6 processing and printing. The biggest proportion of the Lab is devoted to producing schools packs for the 40 plus schools based photographers and businesses who use Redwood.
To enable Redwood to handle the thousand of schools packs they print, pack and despatch each term, Redwood have amassed seven digital printers, solely devoted to schools package printing.
In August Redwood added a new printer to their line of digital schools printers, a Noritsu R2R- 1400 PRO. This printer has brought a breath of fresh air to the Redwood digital print department because of its huge appetite for photographic paper.
The Noritsu can print 1400 10x8's per hour and prints a 175metre long roll of 8 inch paper in just over half an hour. That means this printer is over twice as quick as the fastest of Redwood's existing digital printers.
The purchase of the Noritsu R2R-1400 PRO has lead to a much higher throughput of packs and increased overall capacity by a staggering 30%. This has given Redwood the ability to reduce wage costs because of reduced overtime while at the same time increasing productivity.
Redwood's main aim is to ensure that the high levels of workmanship and production standards are maintained which have given Redwood the ability to ensure that products of the highest quality are delivered to customers on time.
Redwood will continue to invest in new equipment and technologies to maintain its place at the forefront of modern progressive, forward thinking labs providing the latest techniques and technologies for photographers.
If we are to judge Noritsu's standards of workmanship, reliability and service solely on the performance to date of our R2R-1400-PRO, this will not be the only Noritsu purchased by Redwood Photographic Laboratories.
http://www.noritsu.com/Products/R2R+Digital+Printers/R2R-1400+Pro/default.aspx