I'd bet that the parts for a lens come from many different sources that specialize in the part they are producing for such a lens, or even a camera body.
Ricoh - Pentax may design a lens, but with some in-house exceptions, the parts, barrel, motors, circuit boards, flat cables, switches, and parts that require being machined, all are ordered out-sourced. Look at the Boeing 787, Almost all of it is manufactured around the world (at least it was originally, until they found out how shoddy some of the parts were). But everything comes together here in Everett and their back east (N. Carolina??) factory. Same with the automobile manufacturing process. It was big news when Apple announced they would be making the new Mac Pro in the US. Of course, I think they mean assembling a percentage of it. The same with the glasses you are wearing to read this. Think the frame designers have the machines to make the little tiny screws that hold them together? And you know the optics come from elsewhere, ground from blanks that come from somewhere else. Few companies qualify to be shown on "How it's Made" without showing you that some part of the product is delivered, except maybe the Swiss Army Knife and the LeatherMan. On Jul 25, 2013, at 16:14 , David Parsons wrote: > I can't imagine that crowdsourcing is capable of raising enough money > to shut down a production line, retool, and make new product. Joseph McAllister [email protected] -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
