Plan-Les-Watches

After years of trying to make it happen, we finally receive our invitation to visit the new Patek Philippe PP6 manufacture building

-  ASHOK SOMAN

If you know anything about the practical side of making watches, you know that production is a sensitive topic. You might, for example, see news about some massive new structure that watchmaker A is building, and naturally wonder how many more watches will be made under that roof. Now, if you know a little more about watchmaking, it will not surprise you to learn that more watches are not on the cards – at least not right away, but certainly never to the extent that production will suddenly double.

While visiting the new Patek Philippe facility in Geneva’s Plan-les-Ouates neighbourhood (affectionately known as Plan-les-Watches or Plan-les-Watch), we are shown a staggering number of CNC (computer numerical control) machines. It was literally a show-stopping moment for the press tour, organised for Southeast Asia media, especially for those of us who understood that CNC machines can run 24/7. For a moment, this writer considered just how many brass movement blanks could be produced at the new PP6 facility with the multi-axis CNC machines. That foolish moment passed quickly though because Patek Phlippe helpfully informed us that gears, pinions and arbours (also produced here, with different CNC machines in a process called bar-turning, where the raw material bars turn but the tools are fixed) needed to be finished by hand. Anything with teeth, really. To be blunt here, this literally means that every spoke of every wheel gets some individual attention, however miniscule it might be.