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Locally sourced, fresh produce, made from the finest ingredients whose provenance and green credentials are carefully checked.
Sounds great if you’re going to a restaurant, but why not apply the same criteria when choosing a camcorder or camera?
Rather than shipping in your shiny new kit from Japan or the USA, or even continental Europe, you do have the choice of ‘home grown’ produce.
Sony has had a manufacturing base in South Wales since 1973 at Bridgend, with the Pencoed plant opening in 1992. Originally manufacturing huge quantities of CRT based televisions, the manufacturing division has re-focussed in recent years on low volume high value equipment, mainly based around the camera business. This move was originally stimulated by the imposition of an EU import tariff, with camera manufacturing starting in 2000, but has turned out to be a good move for Pencoed. As you’ve probably noticed, Sony made an early move away from CRT manufacture as part of a move to lead the way towards greener manufacturing.
I’m sure many were surprised by how quickly Sony pulled out of the high end broadcast CRT monitor business, where we were undoubtedly the leaders, but an agenda has been in place for many years to develop greener manufacturing processes whether legislation required it or not, and CRTs are difficult to manufacture ‘lead free’. (If you’re wondering about your CRT viewfinder, monochrome CRTs don’t require the same lead content in the glass. ) Our BVM, PVM and LMD monitors are all now based on LCD technology, which is manufactured at other plants around the world, so it’s good to have camera manufacturing, plus a range of other interesting products, to help fill that gap.
So what do we make at Pencoed?
It all started with the BVP series cameras, the BVP-E30 still being made in Wales, followed by DXC cameras, and then XDCAM camcorders. That includes all the system components such as RCPs, CCUs, MSUs, triax to fibre converters, some of the viewfinders, and even a wireless camera system.
A major recent success has been the HDC-1500 series camera systems, made only in two factories worldwide, one in Japan and the other being Pencoed. Just recently, after extensive acceptance tests on sight at Pencoed, it was a matter of some pride to see twenty HDC systems shipping to The London Studios wearing their ‘Made in the UK’ badges. Next time you’re on location with Sony cameras, have a look at the serial number plate on the top of the camera and see if you’ve got a ‘local’ made in the UK camera!
Later additions to the family have been the new 2/3” sensor XDCAM HD camcorders, HDW-700 and HDW-F800, which makes sense, as the camera side shares many design features with the HDC s, and Pencoed has experience of the professional disk based recorders. These two models have really pushed XDCAM HD forward, with widespread acceptance within the UK of a format that’s really easy to use. It gives you the benefits of non linear file based recording, plus a nice blue box to put your rushes in and stick a label on.
Most recently our new digital triax based cameras, the HXC-100 and HSC-300 have also started production, together with their associated CCUs and accessories. These are lower cost than HDCs, and use traditional copper triax cables, making them a great way of upgrading an existing SD installation to HD. They use a high quality data compression system to enable digital HD pictures to be sent over a copper cable at sufficient range to be compatible with outside broadcast requirements (800m to 1200m depending on configuration.)
If after a hard day building cameras you fancy relaxing at the cinema, then there’s a 4K digital projection system build and test facility on site.
In 2008 a new European facility for assembling and testing CineAlta 4K projection systems was completed. The projectors and media blocks are manufactured in Japan and they come to Pencoed for full system assembly and test to supply all of the European market. As well as an assembly team, led by a team of engineers, the operation includes new 4K mini-cinemas for testing the units as they complete assembly.
When we say make….
…we mean make. This is not simply an assembly process bolting together pre-manufactured units. Components are of course sourced from all over the world, but it is really a component level manufacturing process, with placement machines running at frightening speed to position surface mount components on PCBs. Remember when you could dive in to a PCB with your soldering iron and change a component? Well I can barely see the components on these boards, never mind solder them (though this may be age related). Flow soldering through lead free solder baths is rigorously controlled, inspected and checked at every stage, manually, by automated inspection cameras and by x-ray units. The assembly process is constantly being fine tuned so that every assembly and incoming part flows as efficiently as possible across the production floor towards the goal of ‘zero defect’ production.
By the way, if you want really clean manufacturing, the optical block assembly area in the factory ticks that box. Cleaner than an operating theatre, and out performing its sister unit in Japan, this is where the ‘raw’ CCDs are matched and glued to the optical block. This is not a job for a dab of evo-stick. This is a tricky business if you think of the size of a pixel, and the tolerance required for half pixel offset relative positioning of the CCDs, and has required the design of a highly complex mechanical jig to align and hold the CCDs while they are fixed to the prism.
It’s good to have this local expertise available in the UK from the service and support side. It means that our UK service team in Basingstoke can call the factory direct if there seems to be a manufacturing side problem, or take a trip down the M4 to show the production engineers what the problem might be. In turn the Pencoed team can help with particularly tricky faults.
All materials used in the processes are subjected to rigorous testing and measurement to ensure quality is “built in” upstream. When any product is deemed complete the testing continues. To support absolute compliance, Pencoed has its own EMC & Product Safety Laboratories, adding test facilities for both Sony & third party manufacturers. In the laboratory samples are taken from the materials used in all bought in components, anything from the insulation in a wiring harness to a metal casting, and put through spectral analysis. (Best job title in the factory: senior X-Ray Fluorescence Spectroscopist ) This sort of testing continues throughout the product’s life, to make sure all is well even if suppliers change the source of their components.
If a non compliant component is ever detected, that product goes on hold while it gets sorted. There’s no arguing with the supply chain over this, even if, as a sales team we are desperate to ship kit, and customers are impatient for delivery. Fortunately this is now very rare, though in the early days of the GM directive ‘product hold’ was an inevitable consequence of a policy even more rigorous than RoHS compliance.
The laboratory facilities are also available to other customers, so if you need a spot of EMC or vibration testing, maybe a salt spray test, or use of an anechoic chamber, then you know where to come. This availability of our high tech manufacturing facilities to outside companies has expanded in recent years.
For instance in 2007, Solarcentury announced an exciting new partnership with the Sony UK Technology Centre to manufacture the latest solar photovoltaic innovation, the UK developed C21e solar electric roof tile.
To help solarcentury meet the demand for green technology, Sony UK has built a production line at Pencoed, so it may be nice to know that the people building your camera are also doing their bit to provide renewable energy sources.
Green and social initiatives at Pencoed:
On site we have constructed a Nature Study Environmental Centre, which is in constant use by local primary schools. Also on site we have commissioned a bespoke editing suit for “Media 4 Schools”, an organisation sponsored by Sony and using Sony camera equipment with the sole aim of teaching “Media” in both Primary and Secondary schools in the area.
The Sony operation in Wales takes the Sony Corporate Social Responsibility mission very seriously. The corporate directive requires all Sony Operations world-wide to achieve the Sony Green Management 2010 targets. The GM2010 directive lays down very specific objectives to ensure that Sony constantly reduces its impact on our environment in terms of CO2 emissions, the consumption of water, the reduction of waste generation, whilst increasing material recycling ratios. In terms of manufacturing design, all products are expected to have lower power consumption when both in use or when in standby mode.
Sony UK Technology Centre has actively tackled the question of energy saving and has pursued a high profile campaign within the company to reduce the energy that we use and reduce our carbon footprint. Throughout the site, we have challenged each area to reduce their own energy consumption levels by switching off lighting, machinery etc. that is not in use and to enable us to monitor those targets daily. We have also invested in new energy efficiency saving technology to help reduce our Electricity & Gas usage.
This hard work has led to a very significant reduction in electricity usage of 57% & gas usage of 47%. This is equivalent to reducing 3,750 metric tonnes of carbon per annum for the site.
For this energy saving program and carbon level reduction, we were recognised within the Sony Corporation for excellence in building and operating efficiency and were also recognised within Europe, being awarded the Helios ‘Environmental best practice award’ for two consecutive years 2007 and 2008 respectively.
Sony has announced new initiatives in the area of long term environmental commitment, co-hosting the Climate Savers Summit 2008 with the WWF on 15th February 2008. Sony came together with 11 other international companies to sign the “Tokyo Declaration”, aimed at tackling global warming and enacting industry-wide change. This declaration sees the most far-reaching initiative by leading global companies to date, calling for action on climate change.
Some of you may have had the chance to visit UK Tech. If so you’ll know how seriously the people who work at Pencoed take their commitment to Green management and social responsibility. Whenever I’ve been on a factory visit I always come away with a sense of pride that our cameras are made well and made in the UK.
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