History 2004: Imation to Close Tucson, AZ, Tape Manufacturing Plant

Imation will phase out production at its Tucson, AZ, manufacturing site by the end of 2005 and will seek to sell the facility after that.

The cost of this operation is expected to be some $9 million for Imation.

In the same city where IBM is present with its R&D tape business, the 100,000 square foot site currently employs 265 people, although the restructuring will impact 280 of Imation’s 2,800 strong WW workforce.

All of the U.S. media manufacturer’s plants are based in the U.S.

• Since 1963, the Camarillo, CA site has been devoted to quarter-inch tapes.
• The 128,000 square foot Wahpeton, ND facility, which employs 700 people, handles 3.5- inch floppy disks, plastic cartridges for tape as well as a few CR-RW discs.
• Finally, the company has invested the most in its plant in Weatherford, OK, located 60 miles west of Oklahoma City, for tape media coating that currently employs around 50 people.

In 2002, Imation announced an investment of $49 million over 2 years there, and in June 2004 another $50 million in a 40,000 square foot factory for it new “Tera Angstrom” metal particulate technology which should make 1TB on one tape cartridge possible.

This article is an abstract of news published on issue 200 on September 2004 from the former paper version of Computer Data  Storage Newsletter.