Tamron's course into the future

In this piece, we wrap up this series of twelve articles. This time I would like to say something about the course Tamron is taking into the future.

Tamron is a global manufacturer of optical equipment. It pursues its business across a wide variety of different fields. Examples include lenses for digital cameras at the top of the list, as well as video camera lenses and lenses for photography, projection lenses, etc.

In particular, lenses for digital cameras account for a big share of Tamron's product range. However, stemming from our desire to ensure stronger business operations by achieving a good balance in the range of our products, we are continuing with business promotional efforts so as to further boost business performance in new fields.

Additionally, even just from the point of view of the security field, our interest is not limited to CCTV-based surveillance. To differentiate one person from another using biometrics, lenses are always needed for fingerprinting, vein pattern analysis, iris identification, etc., and Tamron is focused on this field. Tamron will continue to develop lenses for a wide range of fields into the future.

Preparing for the age of high definition

As one more example of a field that Tamron is currently engaged in, we are developing lenses that will offer high definition imagery. For example: mobile phones, which have become so widely used these days. It would be reasonable to say that there are now no mobile phones without a camera function in Japan. That is how popular "camera-equipped mobile phones" have become.

As cameras become more widely used, it is only natural that the demand for high image quality and high resolution will increase. Faced with the expected increase in competition amongst camera manufacturers in the move to greater resolution, it is important that Tamron too should take steps to respond to that, and we are currently aiming to succeed with technological innovations. This is not limited to the design side. We want to stretch precision to the limits of possibility, in the areas of plant processing and assembly, too.

This applies to security, too. Image sensors in CCTV cameras with a 400,000 pixel resolution are still the norm. However, networking based on IP, etc. is steadily gaining ground, and we expect that eventually sharper imagery will be required.

Responding to advances in the security industry

Given this situation, Tamron, as a global optics manufacturer, needs to make good use of the technologies it has amassed in the development of all kinds of lenses, starting with lenses for digital cameras, continuing with its development of lenses for CCTV cameras that will be able to offer even higher resolution imaging.

Tamron has large plants in China and Aomori in Japan. When those plants were built they were intended to be used for the mass production of lenses for digital cameras, etc. However, even when Tamron develops lenses for CCTV cameras, the excellent facilities and advanced technologies in our plants can be utilized just as they are, for that purpose.

Also, it is precisely because Tamron has an excellent development environment that it has been so easy to accomplish the production of the aspherical lenses that are so often used in CCTV cameras.

In the security industry, the move to high resolution imagery is still lagging behind. However, when the time arrives when image quality is given greater precedence, Tamron possesses the preparedness to respond immediately. You could say that it is precisely this preparedness that is Tamron's strength as a global manufacturer of optical equipment.

At this point I wish to bring to a close for now this series of articles that have been produced by Tamron's employees. Please accept our sincere thanks for reading along with us. I trust that there will be an opportunity to meet with all of you again. Until then, I wish you well.

This page is a translation of a revised and edited version of an article that appeared in the December 2006 edition of Anzen to Kanri ["Safety and Management"] magazine, published by NJP Corporation.