Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2004/09/24
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Kit McChesney schrieb:
>My objection to the post was the insinuation that somehow the workers in the
>Portugal factory were substandard, or that the quality was substandard, or
>that other unsavory idea, that Leica might be farming out the work to
>Portugal because of some assumption that labor is less expensive there.
>
Kit,
This is an old, old story. Although labour costs** (not necessarily
wages) were much lower there it was the German factory that
screwed up with the first version of the R4/R4mot camera.
The first duff ones were Made in Germany, the following ones were
assembled in Portugal using bad components from Germany.
Unfortunately the defective R4 cameras coming out of Portugal gave the
Familacao factory a bad name, and IIRR,
Leica didn't do much in their defence. Even going as far as exchanging
the positions of the red roundel and the type designation
on the front of the top deck to distinguish at a glance between
Portugal and Germany (R5 cameras show this)
There are even people who will turn their noses up at Leitz/Leica Canada
products. Sheer and utter stupidity!
Wetzlar(or Solms) can, and has, at times, produced sub-expectancy
products too - they just don't talk about it.
Douglas
**Germany is having difficulty competing on the world market due to the
additional costs, over and above salary or wages,
of employing people in Germany. Social security, insurance, 50%
contribution to health insurance, 13th months salary,
unemployment insurance etc etc. More and more German firms are
planning the move to low cost or low tax/high subsidy sites abroad.