Inside The Manufacture: A Visit To Glashütte Original's Saxony Headquarters (2024)

Outside Glashütte Original's Saxon Manufacture

A 45-minute drive from Dresden, over snowy hills and through tiny villages, sits Glashütte, the home of German watchmaking. And perched on a quiet street corner, sandwiched between two other well-known Saxon watchmakers, is Glashütte Original. Just a few days ago we went inside the brand's modern glass and steel headquarters (a stark contrast to the colorful stucco cottages surrounding it) and today we bring you an inside look.

Teaching An Apprentice In The Tooling Department

Special Tools, All Made In-House

Walking through the massive light-filled atrium, the first destination was the tooling department. While most watch manufactures have departments creating their own tools in-house to do everything from holding movements to turning fine gears, Glashütte Original's department is more comprehensive than most.

Each year Glashütte Original takes on three new apprentices, who undergo a three-year course (the same duration as their watchmaking course) to perfect the art of tool-craft. Over 95% of the parts in any Glashütte Original watch are made in-house, which is why tooling is so critical. Only six types of mechanical components are brought in from the outside - balance springs, barrel springs, rubies, shock-absorbers, levers, and escape wheels - and the must be purpose-built tools for making each unique component. As a side note, dials, straps, and other non-movement components are brought in as well, though many from fellow Swatch Group companies.

Bridges And Springs Cut Out Through Spark Erosion

Next we were shown the various mechanical processes used to create a watch's base components, including bridges, plates, and springs. The finest parts are not milled by CNC, but instead burnt out of thin strips of brass with a process called spark erosion. Essentially, a wire gets extremely close to the metal strip and a charge is forced through it. The result is an extremely hot electrical arc jumps between the tip of the wire and the metal, burning right through the thin strip. The result is a strip of metal with cut-out components you can pop out like plastic model parts on a blister card. It is an extremely efficient process, though bridges and springs produced this way require much more careful attention in the finishing department. Only by exhibiting finer hand-work can Glashütte Original take advantage of this technology.

Bridges Too Thick For Spark Erosion

Larger, thicker components are produced using the more often seen CNC process. First, rough blanks are cut out and then more detailed routing and polishing work is done in batches. At Glashütte Original, the machines can work on a tray of 49 blanks at once, and a single tray of baseplates can take 10 to 15 hours to mill. This department is the only one in the entire manufacture that has a second shift, and it operates 24/7 to keep up with production requirements.

Baseplate, Milled via CNC

Everything that comes out of these heavy machines must be hand-checked though, as a tiny error in the tool, the blank, or the procedure can cause a big headache later if it is not caught and corrected early on. Not every part undergoes every quality-check process, but every part is inspected in some way. A problem with one piece in a batch can trigger a check in every other component from that batch. For a supposedly automated process, the use of CNC does not alleviate the need for human checks.

Mechanically-Programmed Wheel Turning Machines

All the heavy machinery is kept on the ground floor, and the upper floors are where we found parts being finished and assembled into watches. But first there is one final category of base components that must be produced with much greater human involvement along the entire process - wheels and gears must be turned from long rods of metal in carefully monitored processes. And to further complicate things, the machines you see here are mechanically programmed, not electronically programmed, so just operating the machine properly can take years of training.

A Batch Of Gears Ready For Their Teeth (Held In A Special House-Made Tool)

Looking back to the tools department, we see these tiny clamps used to hold batches of gears as the tiny teeth are added by hand, and because of the precision needed in these parts there is necessarily waste in each batch on the ends closest to the clamp where pressure and contact with the milling tools is least consistent.

Plate At Various Stages of Finishing

Decorating A Single Plate By Hand Takes Many Hours

Next up in this area of the manufacture is the finishing department. Finishes like perlage, stripes (not called Côtes de Genève in Saxony), and sunbursts are all applied by hand and can take hours to apply to a single piece. Hundreds of pearls of varying sizes adorn a baseplate, even though many of these surfaces will be entirely concealed by gears once the watch is assembled. Each pearl is applied by hand, and the size and depth is gauged entirely by the craftwoman's eye and muscle memory.

Tempering and Hardening

While it might not be the most glamorous part of watchmaking, ultimately these little machines must be durable and able to last generations. This means components must be tested to very stringent tolerances both inside and out. Here we have the tanks in which steel components are tempered and hardened through multiple high-pressure, high-temperature "bakes." After these processes, the components undergo a Vickers test, in which they are lightly tapped with a diamond-tipped tool and the resulting mark gives an extremely accurate indication of hardness and scratch resistance.

Working In Assembly

Rhodium, Gold, and Jewels

At the other end of the spectrum, we have a number of processes that while critical for function are executed with aesthetics always in mind. This includes rhodium-platting brass components, threading jewels into gold chatons, and ensuring every edge is properly beveled, polished, and decorated. You can see the dramatic transformation from raw brass plate to finished plate here - each screw and chaton must be finished to the same degree as the larger, more prominent plate before being assembled.This process involves a number of specialized craftspeople and takes days to complete.

The Casing Department

Up one more flight of stairs, on the building's top floor, we find the watchmakers themselves. Divided into a number of categories, each group is specially trained in particular operations. Many are trained at Glashütte Original's own watchmaking school, housed down the street in the German Watch Museum (more on that soon). Each year they accept 14 students into the rigorous 3-year program and students with good marks are guaranteed positions upon graduation.

The first group you see above is the casing department. The large pressurized hoods force dust and debris out of the workspace as the watchmakers seal the cases and make any last minute adjustments. Without protections like this there is a much greater risk of inaccuracy, slowing down the quality control process. Glashütte Original has 450 craftspeople making tools, components, and watches, with an output of approximately 10,000 watches per year. With this limited capacity, it is extremely important that everything be done right the first time and that production continues moving forward.

Watchmakers At Work

Next we have the general assembly room, where basic models and small complications are created. Here watchmakers work on one movement from start to finish, rather than in an assembly line fashion. It is great to see how many of Glashütte Original's watchmakers are young, indicating a bright future for the brand.

Working In The Grand Complications Department

Just down the hall is the grand complication department, where Glashütte Original's more advanced creations are assembled. While a three-hand watch can take one of their watchmakers 10-12 hours to assemble, regulate, and test, the watches made in this workshop frequently can take weeks or months to get perfect. And finally, tucked around the corner out of sight is the top-secret prototype department, where watches like the Grande Comsopolite Tourbillon are cooked up.

Please enjoy the gallery of our visit below, and for more information on Glashütte Original check out their website here.

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