They use perfection as a target, and any deviation is considered a national emergency. They will have all-day meetings, with screaming matches, over whether or not to release with a known issue.

It is a lot of pressure. Not for the faint of heart. They are demanding as hell. Their testing/QA is crazy. 3,000-line Excel punchlists. If even one item on that list fails, the whole shooting match is sent back.

You can't argue with the results, though. They have been selling very expensive optical gear, for over 100 years, and people base their entire careers on this gear.

That said, I think they are really struggling, these days, and I believe that their conservatism and rigidity play a big part in that.