Tuesday, May 05, 2020

Rolex Reopens in Switzerland!



WELCOME BACK!!!

Rolex Reopens in Switzerland

Rolex is one of the most beloved and trusted brands on earth, so when they decided to shut down all their production facilities in Switzerland it felt very akward. Our Captain Danny reported on our Twitter @RolexMagazine that for the first time since March, Rolex has reopened its facilities in Switzerland. For the first week back teams are working half days, with a 30-minute gap in between shifts to avoid contact. Also, face masks are required and provided by the company as they are not allowing outside masks.




In the United States, the Dallas Rolex service center has reopened as well this week. “Rolex Dallas is open as of [Monday] with a very limited capacity per our local state guidelines,” an email to customers read. 

“Please understand there will be delays in processing received packages and completing estimates and/or repairs until we are able to operate a full capacity. We anticipate turnaround times to be up to six weeks.”

If you are interested in learning much more about the Rolex WonkaWorks in Switzerland be sure to checkout my story named, "Inside ROLEX: Exploring What Makes Rolex Tick."


I wrote my Inside Rolex story back in 2013 after I was invited by Rolex along with Ben Clymer, James Dowling and Ariel Adams (all pictured below) to become the first journalist to tour all four Rolex manufacturing facilities in Switzerland.


Benjamin Clymer, James Dowling, Ariel Adams, and Jake Ehrlich on November 19, 2013
(Hodinkee.com, Timezone.com, ABlogToWatch.com, and RolexMagazine.com)

Below are some photos of the different Rolex vertically integrated facilities in Switzerland that make Rolex watches. To all Rolex employees in Switzerland, my team wishes you nothing but the best as your safely return!!!









Serious Quality Control


Rolex does super-heavy-duty extreme testing on 100% of all watches they make, to ensure they are perfect in every way. Rolex basically takes a belt-and-suspenders approach to testing, which adds layers of redundancy, since they are so fanatical about ensuring absolute perfection. 

The machines below show a specially developed Rolex machine that is testing huge boxes of assembled Rolex watch cases with their movements installed. This complex machine tests each watch in multiple positions to simulate real-world-use case-scenarios. If you look closely, you will notice the three robotic machines below can each hold and test 1000 watches each.