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Old 1 April 2009, 05:05 PM   #6
DanP
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Join Date: Apr 2008
Real Name: Dan P
Location: Vancouver. Canada
Watch: GV-U-Kno-Me :)
Posts: 2,436
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ken Cox View Post
"Rolex is the largest single luxury watch brand by far, producing over 2000 watches per day."

http://www.rolexandwatches.com/page/55654202

Two thousand watches per day.

If it took a year to make a Rolex, then one would have three quarters of a million watches in the process of production at any given time.

I suspect that Rolex has automated much of the watch building process, or as much as technologically possible.

Rolex could make many of the parts in advance, in batches, and hold them in inventory; or, Rolex could make all the parts in parallel, practicing "just-in-time" supply to the assembly lines.

I would assume that all the parts necessary to make a Rolex exist at least one day prior to assembly, and, given two thousand watches a day, and one assembly line for each watch model, how many watches does each assembly line produce per day?

Do the more popular watches have parallel assembly lines, perhaps four assembly lines for GMT Master II's and only one assembly line for less popular models?

Or, perhaps the Daytona Assembly line only runs 3 months out of the year.

Then again, does Rolex run its assembly lines 24 hours a day?

Two shifts?

One eight-hour shift?

How much of the assembly can a machine do, and how much absolutely requires a human being?

Anyway, with 2,000 watches a day and an eight hour shift, that comes out to a little over four watches per minute.
you raised some great points there. Id love to hear the experts weigh in
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