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See the reflection on your Timex watch or Red Wing Shoes? That's the work of world's top hologram maker By
Heather Fredrickson
Editor's note: This story was written for Comm 3110, "Beyond the Inverted Pyramid," an advanced news-feature writing class in the USU department of journalism and communication. LOGAN -- A shed the size of a fast-food restaurant and a second building next to it, maybe twice its size, house the world's leading manufacturer of holograms. Visitors pick their way across train tracks, through broken glass and dried weeds up to their knees, to get to Krystal Holographics Inc. at 365 N. 600 West. The single-story, blue, aluminum-sided buildings face the railroad tracks, with a 50-yard wide parking lot as their buffer from trains. KHI was bought by DuPont, the sole supplier of a multi-layer film called photopolymer, in September 1999, said KHI's Logan plant manager Mike Anderson. This partnership has brought KHI to world-leader status, according to Anderson. "We cornered the market in September" on the kinds of holograms KHI produces, Anderson said. "Polaroid quit when we entered the market." Casio, Timex and electronics companies such as Samsung, Sony, Motorola and Phillips use holograms as the background for the digital face of watches, stereos, pagers and cell phones. The contrast between the numbers and the background is increased, making the numbers easier to read. "We
cornered the market in September. The holograms, which look like any normal background (usually white paper) to the consumer eye, are lighted by a tiny bulb inside the face of the pager or watch at the touch of a button. But, any light source, from the sun to overhead fluorescent lights, can react with the hologram in the same way. Backgrounds for Timex's Indiglo and Dayglo watches and clocks are made by KHI, Anderson said. "[Timex] is coming to town," Anderson said, leaning back in his chair. "We'll show them around the plant -- wine `em and dine `em." Executives from the watchmaker were on their way to check out KHI's facilities. Though now a stable company with international consumers, KHI has had a turbulent past, changing names and owners at least three times. Four years ago, US Holographics changed its name to Krystal Holographics. Originally opened for business in the mid-'70s as Electric Umbrella, the company has suffered through five name changes since that time, said Dave Rayfield. He and his wife were two of the first investors in US Holographics, the name of the holographics-producer in 1986 before it went bankrupt in 1996 and was bought by Krystal Tech, one of US Holographic's customers based in New York. "I assume it'll change its name one more time" now that owners have changed again, Rayfield said. A February tour through the shed revealed one office; one room with workbenches, called the graphic arts department, where the few finished products that leave KHI are put together; an area used for storage and shipping behind the office and workbenches about 50 yards long and 15 yards wide with 30- to 40-foot ceilings; and three more rooms where the holograms are made, developed and inspected. Boxes of products waiting for shipment are stacked in the office on a metal, five-shelf unit. Two more shelving units between the office and the graphic arts area bear dozens of rolls of stickers, and a peg board in the graphic arts area holds about 106 rolls of hologram stickers. More shelves near the workbenches house boxes of products both finished and unfinished, and about 50, 500-foot rolls of holograms prepared for Casio sit waiting in the shipping area ready to go out. Several other products are kept in cold storage because of lack of space, Anderson said. An employee approached Anderson. They spoke briefly about the Casio account. "They said they were processing." The employee laughed as he spoke. How much do they owe? The visitors were curious. Each roll on the shelf was worth $12,000. Anderson turned back to his employee. One visitor's jaw dropped. Her eyes widened. She couldn't move her eyes from the shelf. One Thursday afternoon, three women are working at their benches in the graphic arts department putting together pencils and sunglasses when one of them smells something burning. Her curiosity gets the better of her, and she wanders about to investigate. A minute or two later she comes back to report that someone had lit a match in the bathroom. "It's too small and cramped in here," said Jennifer Fiagle, one of the four full-time women working in graphic arts. "We're building a new facility," Anderson said, but no schedule is set. The shed was originally used by Green River Geological for fossil clean-up, according to Rayfield, but as US Holographics grew, it took over the space. Now, KHI is in search of a new site. "We're growing to the ceiling," Anderson said. The hologram-making process only uses three rooms: one for exposing the film, another for developing and a third for inspecting the finished holograms. The room used for inspection is called a Class 10,000 clean room, which means that there are only a certain number of particles in the room, but Anderson wouldn't specify what those numbers were. He said that the rooms used by Microsoft to make its computer chips, where everyone wears outfits that look like astronaut suits, are probably Class 10 rooms. The women working in KHI's clean room wore hair nets, hospital-green smocks and gloves to keep their fingerprints off the holograms. Each woman picks up a hologram and sweeps it with a 4-inch brush that looks like an old-fashioned shaving cream brush. They pass the bristles over the film twice, checking the hologram for dust, scratches, and any other marks that would render the hologram unusable. If she sees a spot, she passes the brush over the hologram again. If the spot moves, the hologram passes. If the spot is permanent, the hologram is marked and counted in KHI's quality studies. From there, the holograms are packed up and shipped out to China, including those that don't pass inspection in Logan, Anderson said. "Every hologram is inspected 200 percent," he said. About 200 employees in China inspect the same holograms under the same conditions as the Logan plant, and most of the rejects are shredded so they never hit the market, Anderson said. One of the shelving units in Anderson's office is stacked with what he called "rejects." He pulled a Red Wing Shoes sticker off its roll and placed it on his visitor's notebook. The green, red and yellow hues of the wing and logo appeared as the sticker was tilted from side to side, back and forth in the light. The printer, Anderson's desk, and filing cabinets were all decorated with two or three similar stickers. Why is the second round of inspections done in China? "If you want to reduce labor costs," Anderson said, "China's the place." The holograms are then sent back to Logan for shipment out to various companies. The room used for developing the photopolymer film looks like any instant photo developing area at Wal-Mart: one 5-foot tall, 3-foot wide machine cranking out the film as a worker dressed in a pharmacy-white lab coat watches the machine to take care of any mechanical errors. The exposure room was the most colorful room in the building. Green and red lasers fired through negatives to expose the film. Different colored lasers going over the same negative on the same area of film gives the hologram its multicolored hue, Anderson said. "It's a true photograph," he said. The holograms used in electronics, on Speedo goggles, Air Jordan shoes and baseball cards are made relatively similar to regular photographs taken with a 35mm camera. An in-house sculptor creates a 3-D, tangible model of whatever design the company asked for. For Speedo, the design could be snake eyes, swords or skulls. From there, a filmstrip negative of the model is made (called an H1) and several others (called H2s) are made from the original negative. Then, its off to the laser room. Back in the graphic arts department, the finishing touches are being applied to sunglasses and pencils inscribed with the words "Las Vegas." Patty Alexander, a one-and-a-half-year veteran in the graphic arts area, dips the thumb and forefinger of her right hand into a 3.5-inch tall mason jar filled with soapy water. Bubbles form where the water and glass meet about 1 inch down from the lip of the jar with every plunge of Alexander's hand. She taps her fingers against nothing in the air, allowing the excess solution to flicker back into the jar or on the towel next to it. With her middle finger behind the clear plastic strip supporting the holograms, Alexander peels the sticker with her moist thumb and forefinger. Again, she thrusts her two fingers, this time with the sticker, into the soapy solution. With her gooseneck lamp aimed at the lenses of a pair of sunglasses, she places the sticker squarely on one lens. She adjusts the image, slipping and sliding it this way and that, so it is perfectly straight. Then, Alexander grabs the terry towel sitting between the lamp, jar and glasses, and wipes off the water from the top of the sticker. As she does so, the solution between the sticker and the lens squishes out, and the adhesive on the back of the sticker affixes to the lens. She repeats the procedure in a matter of seconds, wipes both lenses again to remove any dust or grit, and slips the finished sunglasses back in its clear, plastic sleeve. One down, dozens to go. "This is the `cool' room," Alexander says of her work environment. "It's a coveted spot here. "The only thing I hate is the on-time policy," she said, referring to KHI's attendance policy. The visitors share a few minutes of laughter in the graphic arts area before being let out through the secure door that requires the swipe of a badge before it can be opened. As they walk away, visitors elect to follow the driveway as the shed
grows smaller in the distance. |
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