Tamron’s interchangeable lenses include those with the words MADE IN JAPAN, MADE IN CHINA or MADE IN VIETNAM stamped on them. They show the place of production and the name of the country where each lens was assembled, completed and shipped from.
   In other words, Tamron has lens-producing plants in the three countries of Japan, China and Vietnam, which assemble and ship the products.

   In Japan, Tamron’s main plants are situated in three locations in Aomori Prefecture. (Adjoining its Head Office in Saitama City, Saitama Prefecture is another factory producing metal molds.) Each of the three plants in Aomori in Northern Japan has a rich history, with lens grinding and polishing mainly performed at the Namioka plant, the plastic parts molded and produced at the Owani plant, and the final assembly processes for interchangeable lenses undertaken at the Hirosaki plant.
   The lenses and parts produced at the Namioka and Owani plants are sent to the Hirosaki plant, where they are assembled and shipped as complete products bearing the stamp MADE IN JAPAN.

   Where, then, are the Tamron lenses with the MADE IN CHINA stamp manufactured? They are produced and shipped from the Tamron plant in Foshan City, Guangdong Province, China. The Foshan plant boasts an integrated production system performing lens grinding and polishing, plastics molding, the manufacturing of autofocus (AF) and vibration compensation (VC) mechanism units, and the final assembly of interchangeable lens products.
   The Tamron lenses with MADE IN VIETNAM stamped on them are produced at the Tamron plant located in Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam in the north.

   It is my impression that a fairly common trait is that some people tend to make a swift judgment on the performance and quality of a lens based solely on the country in which it was manufactured. This tendency seems to be especially pronounced for precision instruments such as cameras and lenses. There are actually more than a few people out there who believe that a product is completely reliable with excellent performance simply because it bears the stamp MADE IN JAPAN or MADE IN GERMANY. To be sure, this might indeed apply to some products of some manufacturers.
   However, the other side of the coin is that some people may overgeneralize and look down somewhat on products made in other countries, such as products MADE IN CHINA.

   A major misunderstanding is at work here, in my opinion.

   Particularly for Tamron’s interchangeable lens products, regardless of the country and area in which a product was made, I firmly believe that the quality and performance never vary. I understand that this is something that Tamron itself is totally committed to ensuring.
   All Tamron products are currently planned and designed at its Head Office in Saitama City, Saitama Prefecture adjacent to Tokyo, and the Head Office bears the ultimate responsibility for the quality control of Tamron products. I have repeatedly heard many Tamron people emphasize, “We take pains to ensure exactly the same quality and performance, wherever a product is manufactured. That is Tamron’s way.”

   “In the sense that all of Tamron’s lenses boast the same quality, regardless of where they are made, we are committed to creating products simply with the MADE IN TAMRON stamp,” they also tell me.
   The people from Tamron say that they see to it that each lens that bears the brand name Tamron has the quality and performance specified by the Head Office in Saitama without fail, regardless of the plant at which it is manufactured and assembled.
   Hence the invisible mark MADE IN TAMRON.

   I agree with these statements from my own experience. Having used numerous Tamron lens products over the years, I could not agree more, as a matter of fact. It never crossed my mind or I never had the impression that a certain Tamron lens was made in China, or Japan, or elsewhere, with any noticeable difference whatsoever.
 

   I was chatting with someone from Tamron about these things one day, when he said, “Speaking of that, our people at the Tamron plant in China often express bitterness about these unfounded perceptions…” The workers at the Chinese plant create lenses with confidence and pride, he also told me.
   “The way they are totally dedicated to ensuring superb quality and performance, and the careful attention they pay to detail when creating these lenses… I’d very much like to invite you to visit our plant in China, if it suits, to take a look around and see these things for yourself,” he told me, saying that they would let me look at everything just as it is. “Don’t you want to take a tour of our Tamron plant in China?” It was early summer of 2016 when he extended this invitation to me.

   Sure, I would very much like to see the plant in China.
   What kinds of people are utilizing what kinds of facilities and equipment to go through what kinds of procedures to create the interchangeable lenses, and in what way do they ensure quality control without fail there? These things really piqued my interest.
   What is relatively common among manufacturers of precision instruments is that they are not very willing to show the inside of their factories. Their production processes and lines involve a large amount of very sophisticated knowhow and a lot of confidential information. I figured that this would probably turn out to be a plant tour with restrictions too, but I still wanted to take a peek at their processes.

   In fact, I had toured Tamron’s plants in Aomori a number of times in the past because of assignments from magazines, etc., but I had never been to a Tamron plant overseas. (By the way, I have toured camera and lens factories of other manufacturers both in Japan and overseas, albeit with a lot of restrictions in terms of what I was allowed to set my eyes on.)
 

   So it came about that at the height of summer in 2016, I visited Tamron Optical (Foshan) Co., Ltd. for a tour of the Tamron plant in Foshan, Guangdong Province in China. Naturally, it was not just a pleasure trip to casually look around, and I had my own agenda for the visit, which was to take a close personal look at the quality, performance and technological strengths of Tamron lenses.
   Put very simply, the creation of a lens starts with planning, followed by optical design, the design of the barrel and electronic parts, and then the start of production in a factory. A lens is completed by undergoing numerous processes in this overall flow: processes including quality inspections, precision control for ensuring the quality of the parts, fine adjustments at the time of assembly, and more inspections, etc.

   Seizing this opportunity to visit the plant, I decided to trace the path of how a Tamron lens is created in order, based on the agenda I had set of quality, performance and technological strengths, right up to how an interchangeable lens is completed as a product. What follows is the plant tour report I wrote in this spirit.

   There will be some detours before I get around to the plant tour itself and also midway through, as I would like to touch on topics such as what an interchangeable lens is to Tamron in essence, and what things Tamron places importance on when designing and producing its lenses.

   Up next in this blog series will be a bird’s-eye view of the outline of the process of creating a Tamron lens, from planning to design and production. I hope you will continue enjoying this series.