Quote:
Originally Posted by alphadweller
With Patek, you get a product for which the amount of human involvement during the production process is higher. Also, Patek develops highly complicated movements compared to less complicated ones at Rolex. However, if we compare simple models, like an Aquanaut versus a Submariner, the hand finishing makes a difference.
With Rolex, all the finishing is machine made, only the final assembly is manual. In the case of Patek, most of the finishing is also automated but on top of the manual final assembly, we have hand finishing embellishment in key areas that are likely to have the greatest visual impact. So essentially more hours are spent on the manual finishing of a Patek movement.
With regards to the quality of the movement, Rolex have state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities allowing a high level of automation, but this doesn't make the quality of their movements inferior. They go through high internal requirements for precision.
Here's an excellent article from SJX comparing the amount of watchmaker hours between brands, with Patek sitting between 30 and 99 maximum watchmaker-hours per watch, and Rolex standing at a much lower 1 to 9 watchmaker-hours. |
Thx for providing the link to the article…. It provides decent baseline understanding of what it takes on average to produce a watch. However, I have issue with math. Let’s take Rolex: it employs 30,000 people with around 9,000 in manufacturing (please correct the data if I am wrong). All 9,000 are watchmakers since they are involved in the manufacturing process. At that rate, u get roughly 111 watchmakers hours to produce the watch which would put Rolex at the top of horological pyramid (Patek is less than 50 watchmakers hours per article).