[Leica] Video of M9 assembly

[lrzeitlin at gmail.com (Lawrence Zeitlin)]

Vick wrote:

2009/9/14 Vick Ko <vick.ko at sympatico.ca>


See the video about the M9 at Solms?


http://www.luminous-landscape.com/videos/m9-video.shtml
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The video of the M9 assembly may explain some of the reliability and
malfunction problems associated with the M8 when it was introduced. Assembly
seems to be mostly a hands on process carried out by skilled personnel.
Production engineers have long known that even trained product assemblers
have an error rate of approximately .001. It doesn't matter whether they are
German, Japanese, or even Mexican. Assuming that there are at least 100
critical manual operations in assembling, adjusting and inspecting an M8 or
M9, an estimated overall bad camera rate might be .1. If Leica sold 5000 M8
cameras, 500 might be unsatisfactory and would have to be returned for
repairs. For most consumer products, manufacturers simply compensate for the
return rate by slightly inflating their costs to cover the price of
replacement products. It is often cheaper than elaborate quality control and
investment in special purpose automated production equipment. Leica does not
make enough cameras to justify an automated production line so they should
substitite extensive testing of each unit. Unfortunately, as has been
elaborated in the LUG, the Leica consumer is the testing department. "Don't
be the first by whom the new is tried, or last to cast the old aside." Wait
until the M9.1.

Larry Z