Manufacture d'horlogerie
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Manufacture d'horlogerie (literally "watchmaking manufacturer") is a French horological term of art that is also used in English. In horology, the term is usually encountered in its abbreviated form "manufacture". This term of art is used when describing either a wrist watch movement/watchworks fabricator or the fruit of its production labor or both. The term is specifically reserved for those fabricators which made all or most of the parts required for their products in their own production facilities as opposed to the use of varying degrees of subcontracted work.
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[edit] Terms of Art
There are certain words which, in some cases appear to be very simple words, yet they sometimes can embody complex concepts, definitions and/or explanations, when used in or by a particular industry, trade, sport or other endeavor. These words are a sort of shorthand that facilitates rapid communication of entire concepts to those in-the-know. An example would be the jargon that baseball players and fans alike use when describing the game, a play or the performance of a team or player. A more technical name for jargon is "words of art" or "terms of art," the distinction being that these "terms of art", in most cases have a legal connotation and significance that the jargon of a sporting event would never have nor ever need.
[edit] Definition of Manufacture d'horlogerie (watchmaking manufacturer)
[edit] manufacture vs. atelier de terminage (finishing shop)
The Dictionnaire professionnel illustree de l'horlogerie (The Illustrated Professional Dictionary of the Watchmaking Industry), provided the following foreign language translations of the French term manufacture (F.): manufaktur (G.) and manufacturer (E.). The dictionary defines manufacture as follows:
In the Swiss watch industry the term manufacture is used of a factory in which watches are manufactured almost completely, as distinct from an atelier de terminage, which is concerned only with assembling, timing, fitting the hands and casing.[1]
Horology journalist, Alexander Linz writing for the popular enthusiast's magazine WatchTime did a piece on the term wherein he wrote:
"When a watch company becomes recognized as a true manufacture, you know that it has scaled to the top of the industry."[2]
And in the companion piece, Linz also wrote:
In the Swiss and German watch industry the term "manufacture" is applied to those companies that can build an entire watch with as few parts as possible brought in from the outside. (The opposite an "établisseur" [which] assembles complete wristwatches entirely from components brought in from offsite).[3]
Gerd-R. Lang, the founder and owner of Chronoswiss, a Swiss watch production house, used the word "manufacture" in an interview in 2005
I knew that I would never be large enough to be a manufacture and come out with rare movements.[4]
Manufacture must be something of a great esteem in horological circles, and a term that should not be used loosely even if, as according to Ulysse Nardin's Rolf Schnyder,
"the word 'manufacture' needs to be slightly demystified.[5]
Mr. Schnyder observed:
But without a unified and binding definition of the manufacture concept , various brands unfortunately use it as a questionable or sometimes even deliberately bogus bit of marketing hype. In Europe, the German-speaking market is the one where the word "manufacture" is really given an unrealistically great amount of importance (when viewed against the background of the realities of industrial production).[6]
The Buyer's Guide 2005, published by WatchTime, at page 220 defines manufacture as:
a watch factory that makes the components of and assembles at least one complete caliber. A "manufacture" produces the parts of the raw movement (also known as "ébauche") and then assembles it into a functional state.[7]
Similarly, Glashütte Original, in Opus, defines a related word: "manufactury" as:
a word originating from the Latin manu+ factum ("made by hand"). Used as a watchmaking term, the word describes the work of a watchmaker who only uses movements designed and produced on the company's premises.[8]
Pierre Maillard, the editor of Europastar, a Swiss trade magazine, quoted Philippe Stern, the CEO of Patek Phillipe, as saying:
We do not use the word manufacture as a marketing tool because there is no definition of this term. It is a concept which is too vague. Still, the word "manufacture" carries an aura of prestige and superiority.
Stern added, according to Maillard's report, additional elements to the concept of manufacture. In its eyes, a manufacture must have:
the capacity to seek, develop, and produce all its components and to distribute its products. It is a whole which requires great experimentation and is defined by the long term.
Maillard quotes Jerome Lambert the CEO of Jaeger LeCoultre as saying:
We [the industry] went through a period when everyone wanted to assert the title of manufacture, but this wave, which consumed the Swiss watch industry, is receding because the majority of the aspirants realized that to position themselves as such costs a fortune. There are indeed several definitions of manufacture: the structural and strict definition is based on the rate of vertical integration. The more one approaches 100% control the more one is a manufacture. It is necessary to be able to design, develop, carry out and control all the elements of a watch, if possible under the same roof; this is what we do at Jaeger-LeCoultre, except for sapphire glass.
[edit] Related Concepts
| Term | Explanation |
|---|---|
| Chablon | French term for a watch movement (not including the dial and hands), of which all or part of the components are not assembled. |
| Ébauche | French term (but commonly used in English-speaking countries) for a movement blank, i.e. an incomplete watch movement which is sold as a set of loose parts, comprising the main plate, the bridges, the train, the winding and setting mechanism and the regulator. The timing system, the escapement and the mainspring, however, are not parts of the "ébauche" |
| Établissage | French term for the method of manufacturing watches and/or movements by assembling their various components. It generally includes the following operations: receipt, inspection and stocking of the "ébauche", the regulating elements and the other parts of the movement and of the make-up; assembling; springing and timing; fitting the dial and hands; casing; final inspection before packing and dispatching. |
| Établisseur | French term for a watch factory which is engaged only in assembling watches, without itself producing the components, which it buys from specialist suppliers. |
| Factory, works | In the Swiss watch industry, the term manufacture is used of a factory in which watches are manufactured almost completely, as distinct from an "atelier de terminage", which is concerned only with assembling, timing, fitting the hands and casing. |
| Manufacture d'horlogerie | French term for a watch factory which itself produces the components (particularly the "ébauche") needed for the manufacture of its products (watches, alarm and desk clocks, etc). |
| Terminage | French term denoting the process of assembling watch parts for the account of a producer. |
| Termineur | French term for an independent watchmaker (or workshop) engaged in assembling watches, either wholly or in part, for the account of an "établisseur" or a "manufacture", who supply the necessary loose parts. See "atelier de terminage" above. |
[edit] Conclusions
Thus, manufacture is without a doubt a Term of Art in the Swiss watch making industry. It is applied on two levels: first to a maker who has the capacity to construct a watch movement in its own factory and; second to a movement, so constructed.
François-Paul Journe, an independent Swiss watch maker of some note, affirms:
Ideally, a manufacture should be able to do almost everything but this is not economically profitable. And when one is a general practitioner, one cannot manufacture all of the components as perfectly as the specialists do it. The extreme smallness of the components is the principal difficulty encountered in watch industry. It is quite simple, some are good, for example in the manufacture of the gears… those which do only that. One can thus state that “manufacture” does not exist and that it would be economically stupid to try to achieve it.
Journe continues:
to be a manufacture is not a question of exhaustiveness. It is not necessary to do everything 100 %, but a manufacture must imperatively be able to conceive and control the exclusive production of its own movements. However it is often forgotten that the movement is, so to speak, the most beautiful and sophisticated part of a watch. He who controls the technique must also control the art.
[edit] A Definition on a Continuum
The concept of "manufacture" in the Swiss watch making industry is, indeed on a continuum. The ideal is to approach 100% total control over the production. Article 12 of the Swiss Act of Dec. 29, 1939, (repealed) stated: A “manufacture” in the watch industry is a factory which produces at it own facility some or all of its production of ébauches and, if necessary, the supplies, parts and cases necessary for its production of watches or movements. The producer is an établisseur when it buys all the ébauches necessary for its production and finishes them itself or subcontracts the finishing. The termineur finishes watches or movements for other-manufactures or établisseurs- and is paid by the finished piece. [9].
Thus, "manufacture" without a doubt is a "Term of Art" in the Swiss watch making industry. It is applied on two levels: first to a maker who has the "capacity" to construct a watch movement in its own factory and; second to a movement, so constructed.
[edit] References
- ^ Berner, Dictionnaire professionnel illustree de l'horlogerie
- ^ Linz, A., WatchTime, Ebner, New York, June 2002 p. 116-123
- ^ Linz, A., WatchTime, Ebner, New York, October 2002 @ page 81
- ^ WatchTime, Ebner, New York, August 2005, at page 94
- ^ Ludwig, R., Private Parts, WatchTime, Ebner, June 2002
- ^ Ludwig, R., Private Parts, WatchTime, Ebner, June 2002
- ^ Buyer's Guide 2005, WatchTime/Ebner, New York, 2005, at p. 220
- ^ Glashütte Original, Opus, 1st English Edition, Glashütte, 2003, at p. 124
- ^ Ordonnance du 29 décembre, 1939(repealed)
