On 6 and 7 July, we took our members to Germany, going off the typical 'routes' of haute horlogerie, to visit one of the most interesting manufactures on today's scene, which opened the doors of its manufacturing and assembly plant to us and, following a path of discovery of German watchmaking, also those of the Glashütte Watchmaking Museum, perhaps the most stimulating in the world in terms of educational and interactive content. Our visit begins in the design department, where 7 engineers and 2 designers work on the development of the company's new models and movements. This is where the Panoramadatum mechanism, Glashütte Original's patented large date display, was developed in the 1990s. From design, one goes directly to production, via one of the company's most important departments: the tool-making workshop. This is a strategic department for the organisation of production, as it allows the company to make the tools for the manufacture of new products itself, speeding up industrialisation processes. On the same floor of the factory is the workshop equipped with numerically controlled wire EDM cutting machines. Approximately 250 parts per day are produced here; on leaving the machine, an attendant manually removes machining residues from each part. Having completed the tour of the component manufacturing workshops, we finally get to the heart of the manual assembly work. Here there is a surprise for our guests, who can try their hand at an operation that is anything but simple: the assembly of the adjustment screws on the balance crown. And yes, because at Glashütte Original, even the balance wheels are produced entirely in-house. Having completed the factory tour, our stay in Glashütte continues with a guided tour of the town's watchmaking museum, housed in the premises that once housed the town's watchmaking school. The permanent exhibition of the Deutsches Uhrenmuseum was opened in 2008, thanks to the efforts of the foundation German Watch Museum Glashütte - Nicolas G. Hayek, to which the town of Glashütte and the Glashütte Original manufactory belong.
