Japan is now in the rainy season and I stay home at weekends for
most of the time. While scanning films, I translated another story
from the book "Olympus-no-subete" (All About Olympus) which I
introduced here several months ago. (sorry, it's a bit long.)
The pictures are missing too, but please imagine four women in their
blue (nylon?) caps and frocks, working at their desks assembling our
OMs.
************************
Visiting The Factory of Olympus SRL Bodies
Tatsuno town, Nagano prefecture is located in the middle of Honshu
island. This town has been growing together with precision machinery
plants of products including cameras and lenses.
Olympus' Tatsuno plant was established in 1981, and mainly "mass
production" products have been made here. Today, there is a huge
digital camera production line, but OM-3Tis and 4Tis are also made
at a corner on the same floor.
The first Olympus camera "Semi Olympus" was born at the Shibuya
Tokyo plant of Takachiho Seisakusho (fore name of Olympus) in 1936.
The "Olympus Standard" and "Olympus Six" were also made here.
Their first plant in Nagano was established in 1943. In February
this year the Japanese lost Guadalcanal island in World War II.
Air-raids to the mainland were becoming severe so important plants
had to be moved to suburban locations. Takachiho Seisakusho had two
plants in Tokyo but both of them were located in the middle of the
town so they needed to build new plants at spacious areas for the
future, anyway.
In the early '80s, OM-4s were assembled at the Tatsuno plant through
line production. In the peak time, more than 1,000 cameras were
made per day. Today, most of the assembly work is gathered in
Tatsuno plant and the procedure is divided in four blocks, each
block totally managed by one assembler.
The model assembled is switched every month. OM-4Tis are made in
January, March, May ...so on. OM-3Tis are made in February, April,
June ....
The repair section is located next to the assembly section. Cameras
requiring major repair work are collected from service stations
throughout Japan to Tokyo first, and then sent here.
Some parts of the OM-4Ti and OM-3Ti are common, but the parts used
at the shutter assembly block are completely different between the
two models. The mechanical OM-3Ti especially requires highly
skilled work such as precise hand grinding of the shutter speed
governor for fine adjustment.
1. Shutter assembly block
Shutter units are assembled here. The mechanical shutter for the
OM-3Ti is assembled from completely individual parts.
2. Front board block
The so called part "front board" which consists of the mirror
compartment and lens mount is assembled here. Procedure includes
steps such as fitting the prism and installing the "M flex" circuit
board. Thorough inspections like "mount-to-screen light path length
measurement"and "mount-to-focal plane distance measurement" are
performed here too.
3. Misc. parts block
Top cover, bottom cover, wind mechanism, etc. are installed here.
The "U flex" circuit board is installed to the top cover. Many
measurement tools are used and various kinds of operation tests are
carefully performed here.
4. Main block
Units assembled at the first three blocks are put together here.
Overall performance tests are done, then the cameras are handed to
the quality control section for final checks. After the camera
passes all inspections and tests, strap rings are attached, then
boxed and shipped.
< This message was delivered via the Olympus Mailing List >
< For questions, mailto:owner-olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx >
< Web Page: http://Zuiko.sls.bc.ca/swright/olympuslist.html >