Eastman Kodak has opened a facility that will be used to test products for the textile industry.
It’s another way that Kodak is trying to leverage expertise that has roots in its film products.
Kodak has put increasing attention on its Advanced Materials and Chemicals business in recent years, including capitalizing on the coating technologies that came out its film production.
The company has been making light-blocking fabrics, under the KODALUX brand name, and that’s now expanded to the point that Kodak has established a textile testing facility at the Eastman Business Park.
“For the test facility one of the important tests is the so-called, NFP-701, the National Fire Prevention Agency, that’s for fire retardancy that is required on hospitality fabrics,” said Cumar Sreekumar, Kodak Vice President for Light Blocking and New Materials.
He said the new textile operation will also help clients test fabrics for qualities such as color fastness, tensile strength and abrasion testing.
Sreekumar said that the idea for the new facility was sparked by Kodak’s experience when it needed to test textiles for its own products, and then started sending them out to different labs, but didn’t always get consistent results.
“And then we started testing ourselves just to be careful and to be sure we are getting the results that we are supposed to get, and that set in people’s minds, who thought about it, ‘well, how about offering this to the public, the textile industry overall?’”
Sreekumar said that depending on how many customers they get with the new facility, it’s possible they could add employees at some point.
“We developed it with the staff that’s within the Kodak light-blocking organization by itself, but depending on the volume that we get for services, we will add staff,” said Sreekumar.
Terry Taber, Kodak’s Chief Technical Officer and SVP, Advanced Materials & Chemicals, said in a statement recently that the company is looking at the potential of eventually expanding its new textile testing facility.
“Looking forward, we are committed to expanding the scope of this initiative with additional test resources to meet customer needs,” said Taber.
