Watch Manufacturing ⋅ RICHARD MILLE ⋅ RICHARD MILLE (2024)

The official opening of our components unit in 2013 was undeniably a big step for the brand. Suddenly, in addition to our technical and design expertise, we also possessed the ultimate tool to bring our calibres to life, machining them internally and testing them to our own standards.

Our first in-house calibre was the CRMA1 that lies at the heart of the RM 037. This mechanical beauty was the fruit of powerful brand innovations such as the function selector, the variable-geometry rotor and the intensive use of titanium parts in its construction.

Much like a Formula 1 team such as McLaren, we rely on our suppliers and partners. We secure the best professionals in the industry to provide us with the best of each aspect of watchmaking.

An in-house construction rate of 80% is already an achievement, and no one would expect to exceed this, though neither the huge investments nor the premises required are limiting factors. We, like Formula 1 teams and other car racing brands, rely on the expertise of many different specialists, as the minute size of the materials produced require a precision and savoir-faire which are only acquired and honed to perfection by years of experience. Our suppliers are chosen according to their production capacity given our quantitative and qualitative needs. The Swiss watch industry has the ability to produce parts of exceptional quality according to industrial methods, and employ staff who love their craft.

Our goal is to work with companies that share this philosophy while guaranteeing good lead times.

Every single element of the watch, right down to the screws, needs to be codified in a similar fashion. The entire process takes on even more significance when you realise that a Richard Mille timepiece contains very few standardised parts, so ready-made solutions offer no solace. The technical drawings, whether they concern a screw, a case, a pinion or any other part, can be downloaded to the cutting, milling and other types of machines; however, this is never simply a turnkey operation.

During all phases of the machining process, people remain at the heart of production. The machines must be set up by hand and calibrated for each phase. The cutters used in these machines, with their unusual shapes and forms, are mostly made by hand to tolerances of a few microns. All of these constraints mean that it takes weeks before the production of a single bridge can begin.

Based on a watchmaking tradition that goes back centuries, hand finishing makes each watch a unique piece with personal and individual care devoted to the slightest details. These myriad finishing operations are the very essence of a little-known art, hidden within the heart and the case of the watch and representing the excellence and quality of high-end watchmaking.

A large number of Richard Mille parts such as screws, bridges, tourbillon cages, winding barrel covers, springs, hands and numerous other parts including the watch case, are finished and decorated by hand. This is exactly the type of finishing that determines the essential qualities that distinguish high-end watchmaking from the rest, with details instantly recognisable to the expert eye, which can to identify each technique used in a single glance.

There is a clear parallel with the levels of finishing to be found in fine sports cars, where some parts rely on laborious craftsmanship, while others more on perfect machining for their visual, haptic or technical features. A combination of these different approaches can be found in every watch. Some parts, like Carbon TPT® components or carbon nanofibre baseplates come out of their industrial treatment in perfect form, flawlessly finished in a manner that far surpasses even the most skilled human intervention. Another part, such as a bridge made of ARCAP®, will benefit visually from the contrast conferred by brushing and polishing, laboriously executed by hand.

Other aspects of finishing can affect time-keeping properties. For example, the teeth of all the wheels require careful hand-finishing to minimise friction and wear. Work executed during this stage, after a part has been produced, is one of the most time-consuming parts of the production whether it entails a special and separate machining phase or a variety of hand tools meticulously employed by trained experts.

Beyond the technical challenge our calibres represent, the cases protecting them meet some of the strictest standards in existence. Whatever material it may be crafted of—titanium, gold, carbon composite, Carbon TPT®, sapphire or more—the Richard Mille case carries inherent production difficulties due to its shape and form.

The curved profile of each Richard Mille timepiece makes these watches exceptionally ergonomic and comfortable on all wrist sizes. However, this intentional curvature is very time-consuming at every stage of creation: pre-production, production and finishing, in addition to placing exceptionally high demands on final quality control. The process of machining a case may take as much as several months and require hundreds of operations.

Because of this complexity and stringency, Richard Mille watchcases are considered by Swiss case making experts to be the most complicated watchcases in the industry, the sapphire material beating all records.