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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