My insight view of Roger Dubuis … Follow me on a tour through the Manufacture in Geneva
The strength of Roger Dubuis is to be a fully integrated Manufacture. It is just 17 years ago that Roger Dubuis entered the world of Haute Horlogerie. In that time it has become fully accepted and its talent and daring widely acknowledged.
The company was founded in 1995 following a meeting between the talented master watchmaker, Roger Dubuis and the adventurous designer and entrepreneur, Carlos Dias. Since then it has risen to the highest levels of the art of watchmaking. Its dynamism quickly made a strong impression on the world of fine watchmaking, creating extraordinary watches that displayed a fine balance of traditional expertise and avant-garde design. The company soon required a new structure that was able to support its impressive expansion and in 2008 joined the Richemont group.
The movements have always been at the heart of the company’ s developments in style and technique. Their special features and hand finishes are evidence of their exclusive, in-house production. And the ability to produce virtually all components in-house − including the spring balance − is an assurance of quality, responsiveness and independence. Roger Dubuis has chosen to produce all the components of its movements because this encourages creativity and gives it total control. More than 30 movements are produced and decorated entirely by hand to meet the new technical, aesthetic and performance requirements of the Geneva Seal hallmark. Roger Dubuis today is the only watchmaker whose total production is certified by this hallmark. Because it produces all its own movements, it is important to submit them, particularly the chronometers, for external certification.
Since it was founded, Roger Dubuis has also designed, developed and produced 5 chronograph movements that are real works of art with a unique structure. Certain movements contain more than 600 parts that are checked at each stage of production, both for dimensional accuracy and for appearance. These parts are produced industrially and finished individually by hand to functional tolerances often measured in microns. After assembly by the watchmakers, each mechanical movement undergoes one week of checking its precision and the perfect adjustment of its functions. This is followed by two weeks of rigorous testing by an independent body, the Official Swiss Chronometer Control, in order to receive its COSC certification. Once back at the Manufacture, the certified movement is cased-up before going through two more weeks of in-house testing. Starting in June 2012, each watch will undergo a further week of tests required for certification with the Geneva Seal hallmark. From the production of the components to the Geneva Hallmark certification, it normally takes 4 – 7 months for a Roger Dubuis watch to be released for sale. Geneva Seal This highly prestigious hallmark is an official guarantee issued by the Canton of Geneva to those few manufacturers who choose to submit their watches to the very strict Geneva Seal requirements. It certifies that the mechanical movement of the watch has been made by hand, assembled and regulated in Geneva. In 2011, its 125th anniversary, the Geneva Seal certification was extended to apply to the complete watch: in addition to the 12 historical criteria for the movement, two more were introduced that relate to the watch’s external parts and its performance. For Roger Dubuis, the seal is essential evidence of its dedication to excellence, which probably explains why it is the only watch manufacturer whose entire production is made to Geneva Seal standards. A guarantee of exclusivity: of the 20 million watches produced in Switzerland each year, only 24,000 are hallmarked with the Geneva Seal. A guarantee of performance: each watch is individually checked so that its functionality, water-resistance and precision can be certified. A guarantee of provenance: the hallmark certifies that the mechanical movement has been assembled, cased and regulated in the canton of Geneva. A guarantee of expertise: every component in each part of the movement is individually finished and decorated by hand in the spirit of the traditional Geneva watchmaking crafts. A guarantee of durability: the meticulous finishing applied to the movement’s components helps to reduce friction that ensures exceptional durability. The materials used and the techniques of production give the movement a virtually unlimited service life.
To enlarge the pictures please click on them…
- This are some components of a Roger Dubuis movement. All of them have to be individually finished and decorated by hand…
- … polishing with wood is one way…
- … the wooden disc turns and polishes the surface …
- … you can see the disc turning at high speed …
- … the person in charge of decorating the components of the movement is also in charge of maintaining his wooden working tools …
- … the picture shows you a department at Manufacture Roger Dubuis that is only in charge to individually finishing and decorating components by hand …
- … the lady prepares tiny little components for her colleagues …
- … pinions, wheels, cannon pinion, screws are only some of the parts …
- … all of them are manually treated one by one …
- … some components are pretty little …
- … it is a demanding work, you are not supposed to make mistakes …
- … the look back in that department from the other side just before leaving it …
- … Roger Dubuis has an impressive machinery park …
- … part of a plate of a movement …
- … industrial production with CNC-machines …
- … wire-cut EDM at Roger Dubuis …
- … Roger Dubuis is a fully integrated Manufacture …
- … a control unit for one of the CNC machines, in the background another wire-cut EDM
- … plates are produced …
- … the coordinates of the holes to be drilled can be controlled here …
- … a leaflet with the instructions to achieve the Poincon de Geneve, the Geneva hallmark …
- … hand finishing of plates …
- … the mirror polishing of tiny components …
- … components of a skeleton movement …
- … on the way to look just gorgeous …
- … fine polishing on extreme fine sand paper …
- … a component for a chronograph …
- … is being polished with sand paper and controlled and polished and controlled …
- … those working here are real artists …
- … no machine could do their work at any stage …
- … what really matters is a lot of experience and passion to do this work …
- … quality control is everywhere and done for every single component …
- … when you see the magnifying glass you can imagine how small the component is …
- … brain food helps to distract …
- … finishing and decorating …
- … a look back to the department I just described …
- … the cage of a Roger Dubuis tourbillon …
- … the balance wheel with it spiral …
- … these watchmakers assemble the very complicated watches at Roger Dubuis …
- … the assembling of a flying tourbillon …
- … the assembling of the case …
- … anchors are produced in-house … what you see is an old fashioned magnifying projection for quality control …
- … a balance wheel is checked …
- … the lady accelerates the balance wheel with air, meanwhile she controls it through a microscope…
- … the in-house department where the watch escapement is produced …
- … this is a workshop where the “regular” watches are assembled and controlled …
- … watchmakers are regulating movements before they are incased …
- … a watchmaker at work …
- … “Reglage” means regulating a movement …
- … assembling a movement part by part …
- … preparations for the Official Swiss Chronometer Control, in order to receive its COSC certification …
- … watches finished and packed, ready to be shipped …
- … hundrets of hours of work …
- … the “cyclo test” is one of the final steps of controlling a watch …

























































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