Last week Cartier issued a very rare invitation to selected journalists to visit its plant in La Chaux-de-Fonds where its first ever concept watch was unveiled. We weren't prepared for such originality and innovation, in the true tradition of concept products. They really have been thinking 'out of the box'. It had been a long time since any of us had been allowed into this huge centre of watchmaking and most of us were astonished by the wide range of processes being carried out in-house and by the scale of the entire operation. It was evident that those of us who have assumed that most Cartier watches contain movements sourced elsewhere in the Richemont Group are out-of date. The company's recently launched complicated movements and its new concept watch have been developed in-house by the company's fast-growing movement design team, headed by the brilliant Carole Forestier-Kasapi, who was previously head of the technical bureau at legendary Renaud & Papi. It was clear from the visit last week that Cartier has neglected to keep us informed of its progress in manufacturing its watches in-house. It has almost become what the Swiss call a 'manufacture' – a company that is capable of producing every part of at least one of its movements in-house – although the company admits that it still buys its springs from Nivarox and sources its dials from other suppliers.

So what's special about the new concept watch, which is known as ID One? It is the first mechanical watch designed not to need regulation during the manufacturing process or at any time during in its lifetime - in fact there is no means of regulating it. Another big advantage of this concept watch is that it is not affected in any way by magnetiism, one of the major causes of problems with watch accuracy. And in case you're guessing, it's doesn't contain any silicon (silicium) components. Only one will ever be made, but the various technology developments that have been perfected for ID One are likely to find their way into other Cartier movements in the future.

I'd love to tell you more about it right now, but I'm off to Switzerland yet again, this time for a Zenith press conference on Monday. I'll let you know more about ID One when I get back - with some pictures, too.