Kodak came to Canada in 1899 and first located on Colborne Street in downtown Toronto. A staff of 10 cut and packed film and paper, fitted lenses and shutters to cameras and mixed chemicals.

Three years later the company moved to King Street West where it eventually built three buildings — the last in 1908. By that time, the manufacture of film, paper and mounts was already under way and the staff had grown to 108 persons.

Over the years, Kodak’s operations in Canada have expanded substantially. Kodak Canada is the nation’s only manufacturer of photographic products and the leading supplier of imaging products for photography, health care, document management, printing and publishing, and the motion picture industry.

Since 1913, Kodak Canada’s headquarters and manufacturing facilities have been located on a 20-hectare site in Metropolitan Toronto, with regional offices in Montreal and Vancouver, and district offices in major cities. The more than 2,000 Canadians who are Kodak Canada, market, distribute, service and support products from coast- to-coast as well as man-ufacture a wide variety of photographic products designed to meet the imaging needs of Canadians.

Kodak Canada has earned the world mandate to produce micrographic film for Eastman Kodak and also manufactures a major portion of the company’s EASTMAN Color Print film, the film used for projection in movie theatres. Exports of micrographic and motion picture film are a substantial portion of Kodak Canada’s business.

Kodak Canada’s world class manufacturing operations have earned two international citations: Class A MRPII (Manufacturing Resources Planning), the first of the Eastman Kodak companies in the world to move to this standard company-wide; and registration to ISO 9000 standards for the company’s Manufacturing and Supply, and for its Customer Service and Customer Equipment Services Divisions.
 

Film coating control room.

Kodak Canada’s ability to meet the criteria for these demanding benchmarks reflects the dedication of Kodak Canada people to the Quality Leadership Process (QLP) which allows employees at all levels to assess and improve the quality of the products and services they provide. Working in teams, employees define their customers, identify customer expectations and develop strategies to meet or exceed those expectations.

Kodak’s goal is to continue its world leadership in images. That means a commitment to expanding the utility of film — the internationally-recognized standard of excellence for image capture. It also means combining the best features of film with the unique capabilities of electronics to define a new paradigm of excellence in images and imaging.

Kodak has harnessed photographic and electronic technologies to provide customers with innovative products for every imaging need — capture, management, display and storage. The emphasis is on developing effective solutions for the customer’s application rather than simply placing the product.  In the 1990s “images” mean more than just pictures and the needs of Kodak’s customers are, indeed, diverse. Governments, institutions and businesses of all kinds look to Kodak for products and programs to solve the challenges of information management.

Photographers, photofinishers, cinematographers, printers and publishers look to Kodak to lead them into the world of imaging made possible by the merging of traditional and digital technologies. Similarly, in the world of medicine and health care, Kodak continues to take a leading role in diagnostic imaging with an expanding portfolio of leading-edge products.

Kodak Canada’s leadership means it will continue to set new standards of quality, performance and reliability — that is the Kodak Canada commitment to its customers.