SIGMA Announces New Aizu Facility for Magnesium Alloy Processing

From SIGMA:

The SIGMA Corporation announce the opening of a new state-of-the-art building at the Aizu factory located in Fukushima, Japan which is now fully operational and dedicated to the processing of magnesium alloy, a useful component that provides toughness and durability for SIGMA Global Vision products while being lightweight.

Stable procurement of magnesium parts indispensable to achieving both lightweight and toughness
Lightweight is a desirable characteristic for interchangeable lenses and provides an advantage over other manufacturer’s products especially with relatively large mass telephoto lenses. These lenses often use metal parts with high strength and rigidity for exterior parts to securely hold optical elements with a large diameter together as well as to protect the internal parts. Generally the use of metals such as aluminum for this purpose poses a challenge as it makes the product too heavy and therefore difficult to handle.

SIGMA has taken this into consideration and adopted the use of magnesium parts processed in-house for the first time with the development of the new 60-600mm F4.5-6.3 DG OS HSM|Sports, due for release in October. The lens achieves lightweight, an attribute which is increasingly sought-after by users, while being tough and durable to ensure lens performance.

Further promotion of ultra-highly efficient “mass production” by in-house integrated production
SIGMA believes it is important to be flexible and act quickly enabling the delivery of unique, surprising, and pleasing products. Its own integrated production system with a high in-house production ratio is essential to meet the demand for small-lot production of diverse products, the demand for which will be likely to grow even more in the future. To intentionally incorporate magnesium alloy processing, which requires rigid safety control, in the in-house manufacturing process, SIGMA constructed a building dedicated to magnesium alloy processing and started operations for mass production, contributing to the stable production of high quality and high accuracy parts at reasonable costs.

The magnesium parts produced in the dedicated building will be used for many products in the future including the 60-600mm F4.5-6.3 DG OS HSM|Sports and the 70-200mm F2.8 DG OS HSM | Sports announced at Photokina 2018.

Outline
Magnesium Building, SIGMA Aizu Factory
6594 Aza-Nitchizaka, Ohaza-Ohtani,
Bandai-Machi, Yama-gun,
Fukushima prefecture, Japan 969-3395
Total floor space: 1,995 m2 (3 stories)
Completion of construction: January 2018
Start of operations: February 2018

Posted: 9/26/2018 5:44:23 AM ET   Posted By: Sean
Posted to: Canon News, Sony News    Category: Sigma News
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