Image Access' new location in Tennessee
Editor’s Note: APDSP Vendor Member Image Access is celebrating its 10th year as a U.S. company this year. The company has deeper roots in Germany, where Image Access GmbH was founded in 1993, but the 10-year anniversary of the founding of its U.S. division prompted us to interview David Gerbholz and Jonathan Wenninger, who lead the U.S. operation.
Ed Avis: Tell us about how Image Access got started in the United States.
Wenninger: Starting in the early 2000s, Image Access made the cameras that went into the Spectrum Scanner from Bell & Howell. These were small-format, high-speed document scanners.
Avis: When did Image Access’ large-format scanners enter the U.S. market?
Wenninger: Around 2006 we began OEMing the WideTEK 36 scanner. Bell & Howell called it the Infinity Scanner. It was a new market for Bell & Howell, and it took about two years for them to really start getting the name out there and selling the Infinity product. Do you remember Steve Andrikut? It was his job at Bell & Howell to find new channels for the Infinity product.
Avis: So how did it happen that Image Access began selling wide-format scanners in the United States under their own name?
Wenninger: Well, in 2011, Bell & Howell was sold, but the Infinity product did not move over to the new company. So Germany decided, “Well, we’ll sell it to the U.S. market on our own.” At first Steve and I worked for Image Access GmbH directly; the U.S. company, Image Access LP, wasn’t incorporated until July 2013.
Steve went out and set up the resellers that we know today. Really, we were still the new kid on the block. No one really knew Image Access. Steve did a lot of the legwork to get the name out there.
Avis: There was a lot of competition in the market even then. How hard was it for Image Access to break in?
Wenninger: It was really hard because again, no one knew us. We pretty much had to handhold any customer that came to us. We would ship them the scanners, show them how to use it, show them how good the image quality really was. And our product at the time was the fastest out there. It still is one of the fastest wide format scanners out there, so we could cut production time. The quality of the product also helped -- we still have Infinity scanners in the market that we get called for routine maintenance on, and they’re 13 years old.
Avis: What makes the scanners work so well?
Wenninger: It's the CCD camera technology, at 7,500 megapixels. We’re true 1200 dpi optical. Our other technology is our stitching algorithm, the way we stitch the image together, because there's actually three cameras in the 36. We got that down really well where we don't need to have any stitching targets. We actually do the calibration before every scan. That's why the scanner flashes a quick flash of light. Our software actually calibrates the cameras to make sure the stitching is perfect every time.
Avis: So if you were building the market directly from the German GmbH, why did you start the U.S.-based company?
Wenninger: When we started growing, we really had to do that. We looked at the future of the company or where we wanted to be five, 10 years down the road. We want it to be a legit entity. And when we went to look for our first warehouse space, we really didn't have a legal entity in the United States to rent a place.
Avis: In addition to growing here over the past decade, Image Access also has introduced several new products. Walk us through those.
Gerbholz: Like Jonathan was saying, originally it was the WideTEK 36 that we produced, and it eventually became the WideTEK 44 and 48s. Since then, we've grown into having a 60-inch-wide sheetfed scanner. We've also come a long way with our Bookeye line of scanners, which is our book scanners. We have three different models.
We've also really expanded our flatbed range. The original flatbed was a WideTEK 25, which was 18.5" by 25" scanning area. We’ve added the WideTEK 36 ART, which is our 36" by 60" flatbed scanner for fine art reproduction. We have these in a lot of textile industries, floor coverings, wall coverings, fabric manufacturers.
We’ve also developed a WideTEK 12-SPECTRUM, which is utilized for ultraviolet scanning and infrared scanning. We’ve got border patrol agencies that use our WideTEK 12-SPECTRUM for verifying legal documents, passports and stuff like that. So the market’s definitely changed and increased over the last 10 years.
Avis: With your business growing in so many different markets, is the AEC market still important?
Gerbholz: It is still a very significant market for us. We have partnerships with RMX Network and RSA Corporation, both of which have members that are very involved in the AEC service market. And we have ARC Document Solutions -- they utilize all of our products as well.
Avis: But the new markets are expanding, right?
Gerbholz: Right. I talk to people sometimes about the WideTEK 36 ART, and they’re like, “Well, is it just an art scanner?” No, it’s any kind of scanner you want it to be, whether it’s objects, paintings and frames, materials. We have a company called Kolay Flooring. They're a flooring manufacturer in Las Vegas. They scan in an original piece of wood and then send it to their laminate printer. That’s how they make patterns for their laminate flooring. And then you have your in-home artists that will buy the WideTEK 25 and scan in their oil paintings and sell them on the internet, those kinds of things.
Wenninger: One good thing to know about Image Access is we listen to our customers. So if they have an idea, or even somebody who calls us up out of the blue and says, “Can your scanner do that?” we’ll take it to the engineers and we’ll discuss it and see if we can’t come up with an idea. And that’s kind of how the WideTEK 12 Spectrum came out to be. Somebody wanted to scan UV light and infrared light. And we came up with it. That opened up a whole other market for us. We got people sending us insects, wanting to scan insects to see the reflective property in UV and infrared on insect wings and stuff.
Avis: Cool. Last year in October you moved your warehouse from Illinois to Tennessee. Why?
Wenninger: We just outgrew our space. It was about 5,000 square feet, which was about 4,000 warehouse and 1,000 office. We wanted to be able to ship out orders within one or two days, and with all the different types of products and all the amount we were shipping, we just outgrew that space. From Tennesse we are also serving the Latin and South American markets, which previously were served from Europe. We have native Spanish speaking sales and support personnel, which gives us a big advantage in these markets.
Avis: How did you end up in Tennessee?
Wenninger: We looked around the Chicago area and to go from 5,000 to 10,000 square feet, the cost was just outrageous. So we looked all over. We looked in Texas, we looked in Georgia, Atlanta, and we looked in Tennessee. We liked the area in Tennessee, and we ended up getting an almost 20,000 square foot building. We had the building owner convert it into about 10,000 warehouse and 10,000 office.
With the added space, we can handle the big ocean shipment containers. We fill it up 40 feet by 10 feet high, and we have the whole entire container shipped over here. It doesn't have to be touched by anybody from the time it leaves the German factory to the time we cut the bolt off here at the warehouse. Everything stays clean and in great condition.
Avis: Great. Anything new coming down the line?
Gerbholz: You’ll have to come to our Partner’s Conference to find out. It’s June 13 and 14. We start Tuesday afternoon with a welcome reception and tour of the facility. And then Wednesday will be product training, new horizons, new futures, all that stuff. And then Wednesday evening we'll be providing transportation to take everyone who wants to attend downtown to a team dinner in the city of Nashville.
Avis: Sounds fun! Thank you for your time today, and congrats on your 10 year anniversary.