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Re: [OM] Visiting OM Factory

Subject: Re: [OM] Visiting OM Factory
From: "S. Morales" <miadolphins@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2001 00:09:42 -0500
Dear K. Matsumoto,

Thanks for sharing your story on the Olympus factory center in, Tatsuno.

Sam...


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "k.matsumoto" <matsumoto@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, June 14, 2001 8:36 PM
Subject: [OM] Visiting OM Factory


> 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.
> 
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