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Piaget - A Rightful Manufacture - Part 1: Geneva

By: MTF (registered) Thursday, February 7th, 2008 - Photo Nav: View All 1 photo(s)

PIAGET – A RIGHTFUL MANUFACTURE – PART 1: GENEVA

Philippe Léopold-Metzger, Piaget CEO: Outside Piaget Manufacture Geneva

Many watch aficionados and experts are not even aware that Piaget has been one of the most important Swiss makers of ébauches or movement components for more than 130 years. Their ‘silent’ clients included Audemars Piguet, Breguet, Cartier, Ebel, Longines, Omega, Rolex, Ulysse Nardin, Vacheron & Constantin, Vulcain, Wittnauer and Zenith.

In 1874, Georges Édouard Piaget founded the movement workshop on his family farm, at the age of 19 years, and devoted himself to perfecting the lever escapement to new levels of thinness. His credo was “Always do better than necessary” and within a few decades, Piaget was compelled by success to build new workshops in the Swiss Jura town of La Côte-aux-Fées.

In 1943, Gérald and Valentin Piaget (grandsons of the founder) registered the Piaget brand name and the old workshop began making watches signed and sold as Piaget watches. In 1945, again Piaget was compelled by success to build a new Manufactory in La Côte-aux-Fées. The cal.9P hand-wind (1.35mm) ultra-thin movement and cal.12P automatic (2.3mm) World’s thinnest self-winding movement established Piaget as ultra-thin watch specialists. In 1976, Piaget produced the cal. 7P, the smallest quartz movement of its generation.

In 1988, Piaget joined Vendôme Luxury Group that was to become Richemont with stable mates like Cartier, Dunhill, Montblanc, Van Cleef & Arpels, Baume & Mercier, Vacheron Constantin, A. Lange & Söhne, Jaeger-LeCoultre, IWC and Officine Panerai.

Our visit to the Piaget Manufacture in Geneva included a guided tour of the facilities by Pascal Narbeburu, Directeur Manufacture followed by an interview with CEO Philippe Léopold-Metzger.

The Tour

In 2001, Piaget built a new Manufacture in the Genevan suburb of Plan-les-Ouates. The site designed by Swiss architects Pierre Studer SA, is shaped like a circle that is lit up at night and symbolises a watch dial. Visitors usually enter the main building via a footbridge corresponding to the hand of the watch but while I was there, they were adding an extension building and I had to sneak in through the side entrance! The architectural concept gives pride of place to light, thanks to large bay windows. Wood is widely used both inside and outside, representing a natural material that, in the architect’s words “does not injure the precious metal, while symbolising the jewel-case”.

Pascal Narbeburu, Directeur Manufacture, explained that the production is organised according to lines, so as to guarantee quality and efficiency. Large areas devoid of pillars and partitions provide great flexibility to allow for the evolution of structures to keep pace with new creations. In setting up the Manufacture in Plan-les-Ouates, Piaget transferred more than 40 specialist professions on site, including the following activities: machining bracelet and cases, gem setting, polishing, rhodium-plating, assembly, casing-up and adjustment.

A dedicated prototype workshop and an after-sales service also work alongside the production lines. The new site houses the design of watches and high jewellery creations. The coexistence of these activities reflects Piaget’s twin vocation, as master watchmaker and master jeweller. La Côte-aux-Fées in the Swiss Jura continues to serve as the Manufacture of movements, Piaget’s original field of expertise. It is there that Piaget develops and crafts its famous calibers: the iconic 212P, 430P and 500P, as well as the newer 600P, 850P and 880P.

Design Department

Artists’ drawings of cases can be rendered with CAD (Computer-Aided Design) programs using thousands of layers of solidifying ‘ink’ that build-up into 3-D ‘prototypes’. This allows the Design and Production engineers to see both form and function aspects of the production process. The same data-points used in the design drawings are used for the programming of the production tooling process later.

The same CAD ‘prototyping’ process can be done with harder ‘plastic’ inks to build different parts of a multi-component case. This allows the Design and Production engineers to actually see how the components fit together. In the old days, I guess this was called clay or wax modelling.

Production

The Geneva Manufacture has upgraded its machinery, even since opening in 2001, and they affectionately showed me the last old-fashioned ‘non-CNC robot’ in the House. Alas, even this old ‘fellow’ will be replaced soon.

I noticed these tubs of white granules and wondered what they were. It turns out that they are ceramic chips with which, rough metal components are tumbled, to start the polishing process.