TZ Tour Visits Girard-Perregaux page 1

2006 TimeZone Tour

Day 3 - Visit to Girard-Perregaux

by Michael Sandler

November 2006

After a wonderful outdoor lunch, it was time to embark on our next horological adventure, a visit to the Manufacture Girard-Perregaux. After a relatively brief drive, we arrived at GP's facility in La Chaux-de-Fonds.

We were met by out host for the afternoon, Mr. Jacques Ourny, Directeur adjoint Responsable Production. Mr. Ourny gave us a brief introduction to GP, and explained a little of what we were to see on the tour. While he was speaking, we were invited to don the now familiar watchmaking coats.

Girard-Perregaux produces approximately 24,000 movements and 15,000 complete watches per year. As you may already be aware, a number of other watch companies source movements from GP, or have done so in the past. They produce all base movements for Daniel Roth and Gerald Genta. They have approximately 220 employees in La Chaux-de-Fonds, half of whom are watchmakers.

The first stop on our tour was the parts production area. Here, case and movement parts are produced for the manufacture. Each machine operator not only runs the machine in question, but also writes the programs for the machine, orders his or her own equipment, and is ultimately individually responsible for the quality of parts he or she produces.

Here you see some raw movement pieces.

This machine is producing movement plates....

...which are being checked here.

The company also produces approximately one-third of all its cases in-house. The cases made here tend to be the most complex cases in Girard-Perregaux's line. For the most complicated cases, producing the raw case can take as much as 1/2 hour per unit.

The next stop on our tour was the parts finishing area.

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