[Leica] They are bad, bad people, I tell you...

[Martin Howard <howard.390@osu.edu>]

Stephen Gandy jotted down the following, which is representative of many
people's reactions:

> This  begs the question how many cameras new Leica buyers are really paying
> for?
> --- the one in the box plus how many rejected and dumped due to poorly trained
> and managed technicians ??
> 

It's amazing how the human mind works.  Mr Gandy is here succumbing to the
type of counter-factual reasoning which seems quite prevalent in much of
society today.  I'm sure that if Mr Gandy was a technician at Leica, or held
some other position at the company which afforded him insight into the
workings of their manufacturing and assembly, the story would be very
different.  He would see that it's a complex process in which many factors
come into play and in which the potential for errors is indemic in the very
nature of the work.

Yet, standing outside the company and without the benefit of first hand
data, many people choose to blame it on the incompetence, unwillingness, or
general lazyness of *those other people*.  It is as though being removed
from the actual situation affords you a God's eye view and complete
knowledge, allowing one to say: "But what else *could* it be?" when in fact
one rarely knows the first thing about it.

I find it extremely unlikely that a company like Leica with the reputation
they have at stake would employ incompetent technicians, or fail to train or
manage them well.  It is exceedingly improbable that Leica could have
reached the position it has today in terms of quality if its products by
being anything but well-intentioned, vigerous, and conscientious.

Leicas command a premium price, in part -- I'm assuming from what I've read
about these things -- based upon a higher rejection rate than many other
manufacturers.  This is standard operating proceedure in high quality, low
volume manufacturing.  But to state that this is due to "poorly trained and
managed technicians" rather than recognizing that there are inherent
tradeoffs in the process itself that manifest themselves as a larger number
of rejects, is -- I'm sorry -- just plain stupid.

M.

- -- 
Martin Howard                 | "We can't make mistakes like that on our
Visiting Scholar, CSEL, OSU   |  own. We need computers to help us."
email: howard.390@osu.edu     |     -- A pharmacologist on computerization
www: http://mvhoward.i.am/    +-------------------------------------------