Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/10/09
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]From: MC Lau <mclau@pc.jaring.my> Sent: Saturday, October 09, 1999 17:37 Subject: [Leica] The Chinese Leitz lens factory > If third world country can produced products of world > class quality and in the course of doing so keeping the > cost down to benefit the users, why shouldn't Leica and > others continue to farm out the works to the third world > countries? The problem is not in farming out the work; it is in the motivations for doing so. Most companies do it to cheapen their products and improve profit margins. In so doing, they very often cut corners on quality. In something like precision lenses, you can only save so much by going overseas. You save on labor, but you have to find very skilled labor, which isn't always easy (how many master lens engineers are there in the world?). You also have to spend a lot on high-tech equipment, and you save zip when going overseas in that respect. Most overseas moves are motivated by greed, not by a desire to produce identical quality at a lower price. Too often, it is lower quality at a lower price, which is quite a different thing. -- Anthony