Exclusive visit to Swatch in Boncourt: the Sistem51 revealed!

No other journalist has ever gained access to Boncourt. Our contributor, Eric Othenin-Girard, was the first one to able to explore the factories that many long to visit and he did so freely and armed with curiosity. Trespassers, beware! Watchonista has been to the mysterious industrial den of an unprecedented revolution: a mechanical caliber whose production and assembling are robotized. Such a good use of industrial intelligence that it has allowed the watch to even indulge in advanced chronometric performances.

The train takes the visitor from Biel to the Jura, up to the French-Swiss border and to Delle, the first French village, right after Boncourt.

The passenger is then at the northern foot of the Jura Mountains, near the Alsace plain. They cross the border again after just a few hundred meters and enter the brand new industrial zone in Boncourt, right outside the motorway that leads to either Strasbourg or Paris. And when the sun heats up the atmosphere and makes everything gleam, the light quavers like in the desert. However, the passenger is not at all in a desert here! In fact, two ultra-modern buildings and two others still in construction stand in the middle of the fields. It is a surprising contrast to find in a region that seems to be devoted to soil cultivation, for these production units require highly sophisticated ecological techniques for both the actual production in itself and the overall energy supply. Indeed, pushing the main building’s door open leads us into an absolutely new and revolutionary industrial world, unprecedented in watchmaking history. But in order to get to grasp how we got here, we need to go back in time.

Swatch Sistem51 Sistem Chic

Permanent revolution: Swatch reinvents watchmaking production

When Nicolas Hayek Senior decided to launch the Swatch right in the middle of the watchmaking crisis in 1983, all observers were amazed to discover that it was indeed possible to reinvent a new way of producing watches.

In fact, that was the first step of an ongoing revolution. Swatch has never stopped innovating since it was founded. For example, when the brand joined the plate and the watch case, when it banked on synthetic external parts or when it used bright colors. These examples amongst many others are proof that Swatch’s is a permanent revolution. This accounts for the millions of watches the brand has produced in 31 years, of which there are 7,680 versions. To celebrate its 30^th anniversary and thus continue in its revolutionary and innovating spirit, Nick Hayek decided to go a step further. He thus set the objective of creating a self-winding watch made of 51 components. For the record, a traditional self-winding movement requires at least between 150 and 180 components. The 51 components were fixed by a single screw and guaranteed a 90-hour power reserve. They also provided better chronometry than that required to be certified by the “Contrôle Officiel Suisse des Chronomètres” (COSC). Indeed, the Swatch Sistem51 ensures a 6-second daily rate as opposed to the typically 10-second daily rate of COSC-certified watches. And what’s better is that this watch was 100% assembled by robots.

Swatch Sistem51 Sistem Cream

Joining forces

During the genesis stage of the development of the exclusive self-winding mechanical movement, the brand’s first philosophical principle arose: the new piece had to be 100% Swiss Made. In other words, all elements and components of the Sistem51 were researched, developed, created and produced based on this approach. As it is, everything was in-house and Swiss Made. This technical and industrial revolution was brought about by the collaboration between ETA, Nivarox, the CNDP (“Centre de Développement des Nouveaux Produits”), Comadur and, of course, Swatch. But the most amazing fact is that it only took them two years to produce the watch and put it on the market. That’s quite an achievement especially as many other companies in the group made a contribution.

The Swatch Group has extremely vast and diverse means at its disposal but it would be nothing without the people who work there. This was once again proved during the production of the Sistem51. The best specialists from each of the companies in the group helped in its conceptualization and contributed to materialize the initial idea.

Swatch Sistem Pink

They joined forces to ponder over and compare their ideas. They discussed, modified their approaches and finally agreed on a concept. It should be noted that the philosophy for the design of the piece has always been to work, research and develop techniques whilst keeping the final product in mind. From this, we can infer that coordination was very important, especially as meetings were often held and information had to be communicated to everyone. All participants had to be updated on the project’s progress in order to ensure their own advances on the part they were working on, while always keeping the final product in mind.

More than 100 specialists

That said, it took over a hundred people united to meet this challenge. The best construction specialists from the group’s companies and the best experts in mechanical movements were chosen for the project. The entire development of the escapement module was entrusted to Nivarox. The company agreed to study, develop and produce a whole escapement module for the first time in its history. Time has also been a strong factor for dynamism and it was essential to move fast and well.

Another point worth noting is that it was the first time that the group’s specialist teams succeeded in producing a completely automated and robotized self-winding mechanical movement, including the setting of the shakes. The latter refer to the interplay and the space between two parts that are movable in relation to one another.

The assembling line of the Sistem51 in Boncourt

Only the best

There were some really good ideas in this philosophy of aligning design and industrialization. The first one was that the movement had to be unique, yet production costs had to be limited to ensure the final price of the watch that would house it followed Swatch’s philosophy. In other words, the result had to be a low-price watch that would easily fit the brand’s collections. The second was to create a movement with the best chronometry even if the final price of the timepiece was to be affordable. Now, that was a very beautiful principle but it was far from easy to accomplish. Nevertheless, as the principles of this new movement had already been clearly established, it was possible to work on its different segments. In fact, they decided to work on the principle that the module should be made of several modules.

Each module’s components were produced and assembled industrially, that is, without human intervention in the development and assembling.

The factory in Boncourt today produces these unique movements and watches. In fact, the Sistem51 is equipped with a transparent sapphire oscillating mass, a robotically-made movement and a movement measuring the same as the famous caliber ETA 2824 – all developed for the first time in the world. Indeed, 17 patents have been filed for the movement of the Sistem51.

Swatch Sistem51 Sistem Green

From draft to production chain

Both the Sistem51’s movement and production are completely revolutionary. Indeed, Swatch was not exaggerating when it stated that the watch’s components and the movement’s assembling were made without the slightest human intervention. In fact, when we visit watchmaking manufactures, we see CNC machines controlled by machine-operators. The components then go back to manual operations and are cleaned, polished, chamfered and assembled by hand.

This was not the method chosen for the Sistem51. We discovered a totally different factory in Boncourt. To begin with, the whole production is made in semi-white rooms. Thus, employees need to wear a special outfit as controlling the ambient air inside the rooms is very important, especially because of dust. Next, we found an exclusive machine alignment. The movement creators included all operations related to component development and assembling in the production. This explains why this production unit has no “small hands” – that is the employees that have to repeat the same operations over and over throughout the day. Jobs have changed in Boncourt and the employees who once had to undertake these tedious operations have now become experts in controlling production robots. They went from a production phase to a permanent control phase.

While it is true that machines ensure a certain part of production control, machine operators are still needed and they have to make corrections when applicable.

They have thus gained a new status and seem perfectly happy with that because, as they put it, they have developed much more interest in their work thanks to these new production techniques. Watchmaking and automation have been combined in this factory whose employees are now watchmaking automation specialists. And, of course, while they were at it, they modified and reinvented machining entirely. Once finished, each module was automatically and robotically placed on the watch’s plate. Then, a robot would fix all modules together with the single screw, which was made possible thanks to their particular design. The work on the movement was thus completed and all that was left was to equip it with external parts.

As far as Swatch is concerned, robotized production does not at all equate to gloomy or severe watches. The brand will not let go of its fun aspect that particularly appeals to its young clientele. This is why the digital printing production range was for decorating either the Sistem51’s oscillating masses or the dials of these self-winding pieces. The “decorator robots” are indeed equipped to treat all colors and shapes.

This all fits the Swatch philosophy perfectly and the production of the second Sistem51 watch collection just goes to prove that the brand is still as “quirky” as it has always been.