mmditter
Veteran Member
Batch production, or batch manufacturing, is a very real but not well known thing in our world. While it has some very attractive advantages, I fear it may have doomed the original Olympus Four Thirds dslr system.
First, what is it? Well, say you have a product. Instead of having your own factory chugging along churning out copies of your product every day, you instead hire a company that specializes in quickly and cheaply turning out a batch of your product. You contract with them to make X number of copies for a price per unit. The batch producer tools up, churns out your batch, then shuts down and retools to make something else.
This has some big advantages for companies, but also can backfire- which I think in the case of the E-Series, may have killed the system. The advantages were very attractive to camera makers an age where products quickly became obsolete. Why keep your own expensive production facility going your 10mp Model 2010 camera when very soon customers and journalists will be demanding your Model 2011 or 2012 with 12mp, a bigger lcd and faster AF? So, you calculate how many M2010’s you will sell at a profitable price, hire a batch producer to make them and move on to the next model.
That didn’t serve Olympus very well with Four Thirds. Olympus infuriated, and probably lost, many customers when they failed to timely update the E-1. The E-3 was far too little and far too late. But all could have been well if there had been an E-1n. They had the excellent 8mp Kodak sensor and the larger lcd screen on the E-500, an articulating screen on the E-330. Why not just make a few minor changes to the body and make an updated E-1 to sell until the E-3 is ready? The only answer I can think of is the E-1 was produced in a batch and there was no production line running that could be retooled for an update. Same with the E-500, a well-reviewed, popular product. Its replacement, the E-510, had a whole new body. There was no E-500 Mk II with minor updates in between.
First, what is it? Well, say you have a product. Instead of having your own factory chugging along churning out copies of your product every day, you instead hire a company that specializes in quickly and cheaply turning out a batch of your product. You contract with them to make X number of copies for a price per unit. The batch producer tools up, churns out your batch, then shuts down and retools to make something else.
This has some big advantages for companies, but also can backfire- which I think in the case of the E-Series, may have killed the system. The advantages were very attractive to camera makers an age where products quickly became obsolete. Why keep your own expensive production facility going your 10mp Model 2010 camera when very soon customers and journalists will be demanding your Model 2011 or 2012 with 12mp, a bigger lcd and faster AF? So, you calculate how many M2010’s you will sell at a profitable price, hire a batch producer to make them and move on to the next model.
That didn’t serve Olympus very well with Four Thirds. Olympus infuriated, and probably lost, many customers when they failed to timely update the E-1. The E-3 was far too little and far too late. But all could have been well if there had been an E-1n. They had the excellent 8mp Kodak sensor and the larger lcd screen on the E-500, an articulating screen on the E-330. Why not just make a few minor changes to the body and make an updated E-1 to sell until the E-3 is ready? The only answer I can think of is the E-1 was produced in a batch and there was no production line running that could be retooled for an update. Same with the E-500, a well-reviewed, popular product. Its replacement, the E-510, had a whole new body. There was no E-500 Mk II with minor updates in between.
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