In today's disposable culture, with stores full of cheap, digital, electronic goods, who knew that so many people were choosing to repair broken cameras rather than throw them out?"
The better the camera you buy, the more value the service is," said John Malinowski, Precision's president and CEO. "You can't afford to have a throwaway attitude. A $200 camera can be repaired for $100."
Precision's aggressive growth over the past 15 years has made it the world's largest camera repair facility, the company says. With 400 employees, ranging up to 600 during the busy summer season, it's exactly the type of business that economic development officials are trying to nurture in Connecticut.
Precision Camera, an Enfield-based company, is one of the world's largest camera-repair facilities, shipping out between 2,000 and 3,000 repairs a day. Here, workers in the Kodak camera group work in one of the many buildings in the Enfield location. The company has another location in El Paso, Texas. (RICHARD MESSINA / HARTFORD COURANT / December 9, 2009)Repairing 800,000 cameras a year appears to be a lucrative business for CIVC Partners, of Chicago, the private investment firm that has owned Precision since 2005. Total revenue this year will be $60 million to $70 million, and profits, while not disclosed, are strong.
The old image of a disassembled camera with lots of tiny springs and levers has given way to modern technology. Most of the cameras being repaired at Precision are digital.
"We jumped on the bandwagon early and strong and got ahead of the competition," said Dave Marsh, the sales director.Film camera repair, he added, "is not much in demand" because obtaining parts is expensive and difficult.
True to its name, Precision runs an impressive operation, carried out with meticulous care. Each camera has a bar-code sticker that not only allows Precision to locate it at any moment, but also allows customers to know where their camera is at every step in the repair process. The company is working on a new application that will text customers with updates on their camera's status.
"The customer needs to be reassured," Marsh said. "People look at cameras differently from any other device they own."
The company services about 2,000 models, and repair technicians usually specialize in a particular brand of camera. Their workstations are segregated according to manufacturer. Nikon and Olympus share one building, with Sony, Kodak, Fuji and others in another.
The technicians use expensive — make that very expensive — machinery to diagnose the camera's problems. These machines are sometimes specific not only to the manufacturer, but also to the exact model of the camera, and can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, Marsh said.
The avalanche of cameras comes from a variety of sources. Half arrive through manufacturers' warranties, and another 30 percent from extended warranties. The balance comes directly from owners, or from refurbishments. About 1,000 customers a week mail their cameras to Enfield, and about 150 drop off their cameras in person.
During the day, cameras that have been repaired and inspected are stacked in UPS trucks. The last pickup is at 10 p.m., and because Hartford is a UPS hub adjacent to the airport, most customers will receive their cameras the following day. The average turnaround time for repairs is less than three days.
Ted Kord founded the company in 1948. His family sold the business to Dave Brooker, a Simsbury resident, after he died. Brooker is credited with taking the company to explosive sales before selling to CIVC.
Since moving to Enfield in 2003, the company has more than tripled the space it occupies, to 52,000 square feet, and the number of employees has grown from 65 in 2000. The number of cameras repaired annually has grown more than 10fold, from fewer than 80,000 to 800,000.
The company has a separate call center with 30 employees nearby in Enfield. It has two other facilities, one in El Paso, Texas, which refurbishes cameras that have been returned to stores, and another in Juarez, Mexico, which repairs circuit boards and lens assemblies.
In addition to digital cameras, the company repairs video cameras, scanners and digital picture frames. "If there's an image-capture device in it, we fix it," said Marsh, although they don't do cellphones. Digital Silver Imaging, a Massachusetts photo laboratory, sends cameras to Precision for repair or for conversion to an infrared format. "They have some of the best equipment," said owner Eric Luden. "You can get a quote that is firm, and they are very easy to deal with."
The company has developed training partnerships with nearby Asnuntuck Community College, Springfield Technical and Community College and the Enfield school system. About 25 students at one time work after school in many areas, from shipping on up — although repair technicians have to be at least 18 to use soldering irons.
Workers with good hand-eye coordination and mechanical skills are encouraged to apply for jobs as repair technicians, and many former interns have been taken on permanently.
"We like to retain our folks," said Malinosky. Precision hopes to benefit from the current emphasis on recycling. The company commissioned a study by Clark University environmental economists, which compared the environmental impact of camera repairs with replacement. The conclusion: Repairing used seven times fewer resources and seven times less carbon dioxide than replacement.
Copyright © 2010, The Hartford Courant
via courant.com
No comments:
Post a Comment