Customer Centered Quality Control CCQC - The Canon Approach

When we think of Quality Control (QC), we usually think it refers to a manufacturer taking steps to ensure products produced perform according to specification or are otherwise up to standard before they leave the factory. QC is also performed to identify faulty products or batches of products so they can be fixed before it reaches the customer.

Canon on the other hand, seems to think that QC is too expensive or time consuming and therefore leaves it to the Customer to do the testing. And if the customer does find something wrong with their product, let customer service and the local Canon repair facility deal with it. Say for every quantity of 100 L lenses Canon sells, say on 10 customers identify problems, only those 10 lenses get fixed or replaced. Canon saves lots of money by not having to do any QC at all. Makes sense doesn't it?

I suspect Canon simply calibrates its machinery to run a batch of say 20,000 of their EF 70-200mm f2.8 L IS USM lenses and after checking that the first few lenses are produced okay, they let 'em run. Canon has publicly said that to control costs, they produce enough of their lenses for 1 year's supply.

When I first read about problems with their professional lenses here , and here. I thought that it must be rare. Authors of those posts must be blowing things out of proportion. I can't be that bad, or can it?

While Nikon powers on with its string of successes with success as defined in giving customers what they want, Canon has gone on by giving us mediocre bodies (poor 9pt AF, poorer built) and more mega-pixels with correspondingly more noise.

And what do I have by way of proof that Canon really has no effective QC or no QC at all? Over the next few days, I'll be doing a write up of tests done on a brand new out of the box Canon EF 70-200mm 2.8 L IS USM lens and the brand new Canon G10. Both of which I bought. There'll be advice on how to test lenses and what to look out for. Stay tuned.