Manufacturing

Challenging Conventions

Our Manufacturing Approach

Technology alone doesn’t make our products — our challenger spirit and uncompromising craft do. We strive to put the soul into every lens and camera by questioning conventions and perfecting innovation. Our high-performing lenses and cameras are proof of that.

This progressive spirit is embodied in our engineers’ exploration of new technologies and our skilled workers’ relentless refinement of the final product. They collaborate across departments, transforming ideas into reality through the synergy of their diverse skills and technologies.

Making a Sigma product is not a rigid, standardized process — it’s dynamic, requiring constant creativity and dialogue. And when the technology for an idea doesn’t exist, we invent it.

Beyond Discipline

Sigma focuses on three key areas: development, manufacturing, and services. Together, they form the foundation of our offering. We design and develop our products at our headquarters and bring them to life at our Aizu factory. Our services, including our unique lens repair service, reflect the attention to detail that define our development and production.

Sigma’s product development is rooted in the interaction of knowledge and technology. By exchanging thoughts, ideas, and innovations across departments, we continuously gather valuable insights. These insights drive the creation of new ideas and solutions, culminating in our products.

Small Office Big Factory

One fundamental principle at Sigma is "small office, big factory." This phrase captures the balance of creativity and technology that defines our unique production system.

Our office sparks ideas, and our factory turns them into high-quality products. The process can move quickly, beginning with concepts for lenses we want to create or innovations we believe could push photographers' creativity in new directions. Once we’ve figured out how to prototype them, we bring them to life using our advanced manufacturing technology in Aizu.

Our approach requires the integration of human thought and technology, and this balance is integral to our philosophy. Over the years, the interaction between humans and machines has become increasingly refined, thanks to our production, research, development, and assembly being concentrated in the same country for decades.

Staying Vertical
An Integrated Supply Chain

Sigma’s production system has been entirely based in Japan since our founding in 1961. Unlike most production chains in today’s globalized world, we produce and tailor all components either at our own factory in Aizu or in collaboration with local businesses concentrated in the Tohoku region. The Aizu factory started operating in 1973.

Our one-region production system provides other competitive advantages. Direct, face-to-face communication ensures speedy and meticulous product development. And since the same people are consistently involved in our manufacturing processes, they gain more experience, knowledge, and know-how, from which new innovations can spring.

These qualities require a holistic, intangible understanding. We consider them an irreplaceable asset. That is why our domestic, fully integrated production system is so important to us.