Do you prefer your watch factory to be clean or dirty?

Over years of visiting watch factories and so-called Manufactures, we have seen all sorts of workshop conditions.  There have been clean rooms that you could eat off the floor; and staffed with personnel wrapped in clean suits, face masks and surgical caps. There have also been messy workshops where food could be lost on the floor and you would not know because of the mess everywhere.

I've also been to the 'atelier' of an AHCI member in Geneva with fancy CNC machines in the basement; all shiny and new but nothing was switched on!  Remarkably, if you need to replace the gears and wheels of one of their "manufactured" movements, you could use stock parts from ETA that would fit and work perfectly.......hmmm?

I am pleased to report that the Chopard and LUC Manufactures are very messy indeed!

At Chopard, they even smelt their own gold alloys.

More importantly, I always check out waste-bins for metal swarf that proves it is a working factory.

Of course, some metal swarf is more valuable than others

Chopard is a little obsessive about precision and quality control.....

Amongst the shiny computerised milling wizardry, it is always comforting to see hand-made tools that people really use, which are cobbled together from wood and metal.

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The Chopard bracelet links may be made by machine but they are polished and assembled by hand.

As both a watchmaker and jeweller, Chopard also handcraft shiny beautiful things.

I ask again:  Do you prefer your watch factory to be clean or dirty?

Regards,

MTF