“Follow the product: Rolex”
I. Brief history:
The history of Rolex is inextricably linked to the visionary spirit of Hans Wilsdorf, its
founder. In 1905, at the age of 24, Hans Wilsdorf founded a company in London specializing in
the distribution of timepieces. He began to dream of a watch worn on the wrist. Wristwatches
were not very precise at the time, but Hans Wilsdorf foresaw that they could become not only
elegant, but also reliable. Hans Wilsdorf wanted his watches to bear a name that was short, easy
to say and remember in any language, and which looked good on watch movements and dials.
He said, “I tried combining the letters of the alphabet in every possible way. This gave me some
hundred names, but none of them felt quite right. One morning, while riding on the upper deck of
a horse-drawn omnibus along Cheapside in the City of London, a genie whispered ‘Rolex’ in my
ear.”
II. Materials:
The Rolex is a big company of wrist watch. They make different kinds of watches with different
kinds of materials, that is based from the needs and activity of the person. That is why I just choose one of
the watches that they make as the focus on the materials they use. This is in order to be more precise in
giving the origin and raw materials.
Cosmograph Daytona
Parts
Body- 18 ct white gold, Platinum, Silver, copper or palladium, glass, stainless
steel, oyster steel
Dial- Meteorite, 18 ct white gold
Tachymetric scale/ Bezel- CERAMIC
Bracelet- Metal, Rubber
After extensive research about where Rolex get their raw materials I found out that Rolex
don’t publish anything about where they get the materials they use. According to their site they
make all the Raw materials in their laboratories. They make their own metals such as oyster
steel, High-resistance ceramic, paramagnetic alloys, specially formulated 18 ct golds, and
Rolesor.
In Plan-les- Ouates site they make the bracelets and cases. While in Bienne site is where
they assemble the body of the watch and its component. And in last site in Geneva acacias where
the headquarters is located they make the research and development, design and final touches for
the watch. This places are all located is Switzerland.
In Tagesanzeiger a paper published by Juliane Kippenberg tilled “Jewelers, Take
Responsibility!” it is written there that “Rolex, don’t publish any information about their supply
chains and company responsibility.” “Many companies don’t know where their gold and
diamonds are coming from such as Bulgari, Chopard, Harry Winston and Rolex.”
III. Countries where Rolex is being sold:
List:
Switzerland Nice Pakistan Israel
Sweden Singapore Australia Guam
Mexico Panama Spain Malta
Finland Austria Middle East South Africa
Bahamas Malaysia Philippines Hong Kong
Germany Brazil England Egypt
Hong Kong Belgium Saudi Arabia Canada
Jamaica Taiwan China Japan
France Chile Italy Greece
Korea Netherlands Oman USA
Grand Argentina New Zealand
Cayman Netherlands Italy
IV. Technology
After the raw materials are made in the laboratories of Rolex. They inspect it manually and
using x-rays for example, they can test diamonds to ensure they aren’t fake. Each and every
diamond or precious stone (no matter how large or small) on a Rolex watch is hand-selected and
hand-set. Each Rolex Oyster, as well as Oyster dive watches begins with this air pressure
treatment. After being air pressure tested, Rolex proceeds to test the water resistance of each and
every Rolex Submariner and Deep Sea watch in actual water. This type of test is much less
common. Submariner watches are placed in large tubes that are filled with water to ensure that
they are water resistant to 300 meters. The test is extremely complex because Rolex employs a
complex system for testing if water entered the case. After the watches exit the tank, they are
heated up and a drop of cold water is placed on the crystal to see if condensation forms. An
optical sensor then scans them for trace amounts of water. Less than one in a thousand watches
fail the test. The story is much more intense for Deep-Sea watches. Rolex co-developed a special
high-pressure water tank with COMEX to depth test each Deep-Sea watch. The pressure tank
looks like something from a science fiction movie. Imagine something that looks like a several
ton Gatling gun. This machine takes well over an hour and measures each watch to a pressure
equivalent to 12,000 meters [Link] final manufacturing everything is inspect and assembled by
hand.
Overall it takes about a year to make one R olex watch and the company produces
almost a million watches a year with no other short cut procedure.
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