Blancpain - Analyses and Shock Treatments
Lettres du Brassus - No 09
As wagging tongues tell it, no one can live in the Joux Valley unless they were born there. Especially if they love sun and the sea. "That's a city-dweller talking," replies Alain Delizee, a native Belgian whose passion for watches and nature brought him to live in Les Bioux, in the heart of this Joux Valley that for over two centuries has been the sanctum sanctorum of watchmaking expertise. He still lives here today, with his wife and 16-year-old son, and knows very well how to make the most of this place: between kitesurfing, mountain biking, cross-country skiing (at night, with a headlamp!), gardening and odd jobs, this multi-talented man always keeps busy during his free time, like a movement that never winds down. Yet, early on, there was nothing to suggest that the young man would settle in this area, other than a visit to a watchmaking school after a chance encounter, and a passion for both nature and the very small.
"I have always loved miniaturization," says Delizee, who still admires all tiny mechanisms. "Conversely, I am also fascinated by very large mechanical things—Caterpillar, for example! My heart has always swung back and forth between these two extremes. But I needed to steer myself into a manual profession. I wanted to touch the material; that's important. Since I was very young, I have always tinkered. Perhaps watchmaking is a mixture of the two: miniaturization, and the opportunity to be in contact with the material."
The Quintessential Swiss
It all started with a visit to the Joux Valley Technical School. "I was lucky enough to visit it alone with my dad, and guided by the director at the time, Charles-Andre Reymondin," Delizee remembers. "He presented the school to me in an amazing and incredibly lively way. It hit me like a ton of bricks! I was blown away, and was soon telling myself that I should go study there."
Shortly afterwards, native Belgian and now Swiss Alain Delizee was arriving in an unfamiliar place, after spending his childhood between Nyon and Geneva. Needless to say, no one in his family had ever been remotely connected with watchmaking. For him, it was his fascination with mechanics and the very small, coupled with this school visit, that were to determine his path.
"As a Swiss, I have done two things in the best Swiss tradition," he says with a broad smile. "Since Switzerland had welcomed me, I did my military service—which was difficult, since I didn't always agree with the orders that came down the chain of command—, and I devoted my career to making watches. In short, you can see that I am a perfectly assimilatedSwiss!" So his career path began at the Joux Valley Technical School with a watchmaking apprenticeship completed in three years and a secondary school professional diploma qualifying him to study at an ecole superieure . Soon thereafter, he matriculated at the Yverdon-les-Bains School of Engineering and there chose a course of study not directly related to watchmaking, namely microtechnology. We recall that in the mid-1980s, watchmaking did not have much wind in its sails and it was wise not to put all one's formative eggs in one basket… Besides, while Alain Delizee loves watchmaking, he is also open, curious, and likes to study various disciplines.
In Shorts and Flip-Flops
With his double set of credentials as a watchmaker and microtechnology engineer, Alain Delizee knew he would have some professional opportunities, and decided to experience life first. He traveled—in the winter, to the mountains as a snowboarding coach; in the summer, to the lake as a sailboarding instructor—and undertook a series of activities and odd jobs, interrupted by a few months of sheer delight and sailboarding in the Canary Islands. To cut a long story short, the young man wholeheartedly pursued his second passion: sports, movement —already!— and outdoor pursuits. He spent two years living life to the fullest, so as to be absolutely ready to start a real career. Notably, it was in flip-flops and shorts that, on the shores of Lake Joux, Alain Delizee met Jacques Piguet, who received an offer of services from a beach attendant—who also happened to be a watchmaker and engineer! Thus began a great professional adventure…
So, in 1992, Alain Delizee got his start at Frederic Piguet in Le Brassus, next door to Blancpain's "farm house"—working in technical customer service. "In short, that means I was on the front lines!" he grins. After two years, he also set up and later headed the after-sales service department. Two years later, he was given responsibility for the Laboratory. This was at the time when this family company had come under the Swatch Group umbrella and was gearing up. With a boost from the Swatch Group, structures were strengthened and/or created. "They gave us the resources to move forward," notes Delizee. For the Laboratory, this meant implementing a more appropriate structure by designing, manufacturing and developing in-house testing machines —there were none on the market— and tools; and drawing up a multitude of approval protocols. In fact, while many things obviously were already in place, they naturally were not as well developed as they are today. In addition, a higher volume of projects and inherent organizational problems had to be managed. In fact, there was huge growth in a few years, which meant that this structural and organizational adjustment was absolutely necessary.
Then, as now, Alain Delizee sees his relationship with his colleagues as key. For him, team spirit and group work are not merely abstract concepts. At the very idea that we were doing this profile, the Head of the Laboratory bridled at being put in the spotlight. He told us right away, "For me, teamwork is what counts. It's not me you should be presenting, but the team and the colleagues I've been working with for years. Each one contributes something. Here, we truly know how to work as a team, and it's important; naturally, this is reflected in the results of our work."
A Crucial Encounter
This team spirit is also a story of encounters—those chance meetings that are so important, they can influence one's entire professional life. For Alain Delizee and some of his colleagues, one such encounter was crucial: contact with Edmond Capt, a watchmaking celebrity, namely the inventor of the Blancpain 1185 chronograph caliber (see Lettres du Brassus #3), whose skills and intelligence made a lasting impression on an entire generation of watchmakers and engineers, including Alain Delizee. To hear Delizee talk, one senses that his contact with Capt was just as decisive as the respect it inspired is deep. "He was an incredible guy, a colossus, but impressively humble. He was the boss, he directed all the development. Aside from his knowledge and his ability to move new ideas forward, I always valued his candor and direct side. Nothing was ever left unsaid with him. I unquestionably learned my trade from contact with him; and the same is true for many of us. When dealing with Edmond Capt, you listened, you learned, and you progressed. We gained an incredible amount of knowledge working alongside of him."
When Alain Delizee took leadership of the Laboratory in 1996, it consisted of three or four people. "And to get access to a computer, I had to steal one from my colleagues in the technical department!" he remembers. "But don't write that!" (We ignored his plea, given that all this is ancient history!) Since then, the Laboratory has changed completely. "In 20 years, I have had the opportunity to work in three different companies without changing firms! In the beginning, Frederic Piguet was a small family company, which then got a powerful boost when it was acquired by the Swatch Group. Finally, more recently, with the incorporation of Frederic Piguet into Blancpain, we have moved from being a company that made "motors" to a brand.
Even though Blancpain has been a special and privileged client for us for a long time, these changes are obviously important. And while all of the situations and eras had their advantages and disadvantages, it has been very interesting and stimulating for me to follow the evolution of this constantly changing entity that currently has more than 700 employees."
Keeping Up With the Times
This also means that the teams have to be highly adaptable. They need to be able to reassess what they are doing and learn from past mistakes in order to continually progress. This philosophy is very much in evidence when visiting Blancpain's workshops today. And that is not by chance. "I wouldn't have liked to be in a 'fusty' company, like the image people sometimes have of watchmaking," stresses Delizee. "In fact, it is perfectly possible to respect the past and the accomplishments of our predecessors while keeping up with the times. We live in the 21st century, techniques have changed, the materials are different and clients expect much more of their watches. For all of these reasons, you have to keep up with the times, know how to reevaluate yourself and especially how to move forward. Otherwise, you will only partly live up to expectations, and you will get very bored with your work."
Located in Le Sentier, Blancpain's R&D structure includes three entities once directed by Edmond Capt. The first, the technical department, managed by Marco Rochat, brings together the engineers who develop and construct all the movements. "They are super-constructors," notes Delizee, "but they almost never handle forceps. It's not a question of compartmentalizing, but of efficiency and reality. Because you can have the best constructors, but they do not necessarily make the best developers. At Blancpain we are lucky to have super-constructors and super-developers. That is a considerable advantage." The second R&D entity is development logistics, headed by Emmanuel Couvreux. This department is in charge of having the components made, ordering, tracking planning, finding technical solutions for certain specific requests, "for example, when we are trying new materials or talking about somewhat exotic things," Delizee clarifies. The third R&D entity is the Laboratory.
An Admission of Maltreatment
With "chief tester" Alain Delizee at its helm, the Laboratory is a true "chamber of horrors" for watches and movements. All projects—which means all movements—are minutely examined and subjected to the worst kind of treatment under the impassive gaze of Alain Delizee and some ten co-workers. These nascent movements are spared nothing, or almost nothing. Everything is approved, inspected, tested, aged, and measured so there will be no unpleasant surprises to disrupt the mechanisms once they are approved. "I have a great time with the motors!" says Delizee. "I am a bit of a watch mechanic, and my job is to nitpick, to see what they're made of." And there is no need to tell him twice: almost every component and function is analyzed and tested. The barrel, gears, regulator, escapement, winding crown stem, and any other sensitive parts are checked from every angle and in the most difficult situations. The same is true of the functions, which are tirelessly tested and subjected to the worst kinds of torture to evaluate their sturdiness: the date, instantaneous large date, power reserve, automatic winding system, carrousel, and even the tourbillon pass through the Laboratory employees' expert and demanding hands. No one here worries about causing damage—that is what they are paid to do. So it is not surprising to see tourbillon series—which can be worth more than 250,000 Swiss francs each—being unceremoniously manhandled through tests. The reliability of a finished product also comes at this cost. And it is in this spirit that Alain Delizee's entire team does its work. In the end, the overall mission can be summarized as three goals: approve a movement's construction, perform fatigue tests to determine its resistance to wear and tear, and, finally, subject all the movements and watches to violent mechanical and thermal shocks. If a movement can withstand these wearing ordeals without damage, it will assuredly be well-born.
To carry out these necessary tortures as effectively as possible, the Laboratory relies on "a whole series of instruments and testing machines," as Alain Delizee puts it, which have mostly been developed in-house. Aside from the famous pendulum ram impact-testing machine, which accelerates the watches being tested at nearly 5,000 G and crashes them, other machines test the movements' resistance to violent deceleration in six directions! As for the chronographs, they have to get through more than 10,000 start-stop-reset operations without incident to have a chance to continue their "career" in the Laboratory. While the powerful accelerations are impressive for their violent motions, it is perhaps repetition that most severely tests watches and movements. For example, nearly 400,000 micro-blows are dealt to the pieces being tested to obtain a true measure of how well they stand up to stress! The "balisometer" and "varioforce" machines are used to make very accurate measurements of the movements' intrinsic performance and the slightest shifting in their components. Happily blowing hot and cold, Laboratory employees revel in inflicting horrendous temperature changes on movements undergoing the approval process. One may well believe that an abrupt change from -20°C to +70°C is no sinecure for the pieces subjected to these extreme conditions. Another pride and joy of the Laboratory is the "Geriator," developed in-house to artificially age the gears. If no wrinkles appear, they are on the right track! After sending the components on a trip through time, the Laboratory's experts treat the basic movements more reasonably, allowing them to run for several years while observing them to see whether they perfectly conform to the near-invulnerability required of them.
Watches Then and Now: Two Different Worlds
These inspection and approval tests, described here in a few lines, are actually very numerous and naturally take a great deal of time. For example, a complication movement will undergo nearly 50 "stages" of tests, which represent more than 4,000 hours of testing in the Laboratory alone, not counting the years of observation to which the movements are subjected once they have passed the battery of tests.
It should be noted that the prototype pieces tested in Blancpain's Laboratory are essentially mass-produced watches, owing to the company's philosophy that test pieces should correspond in every way to the watches that will later be sold. This is true of all components and finishes—even the decorations are identically made.
The batteries of tests, in particular those done in the Laboratory, and advances in many areas—metallurgy, lubrication, etc.—have made today's watches much more reliable and efficient than timepieces offered only 15 or 20 years ago. Alain Delizee confirms this in his own words: "You would have to be blind or deliberately obtuse not to understand that the watch as an object has undergone significant development, to say the least." The quality of steel is superior, the materials are better suited for the uses asked of them, lubricants have been greatly improved, silicon and silicon research have opened key new horizons, hairsprings have remarkable thermal compensation properties, magnetic effects can be avoided, shock resistance has been much improved—in short, everything, or almost everything, has changed. "And this is a good thing," Delizee adds, "because at the same time the wearer has higher expectations. Today's watch is clearly more reliable in the sense that it keeps time better and maintains this quality longer. Thanks to this double improvement, the owner benefits from another as well: longer maintenance intervals."
Kitesurfing and Tourbillon
And what kind of watch appeals to this specialist in reliability? "I like watches that show all or part of the movement. At the same time, a living watch is a watch that moves. Putting all of that together readily leads me to the tourbillon. A tourbillon is beautiful, you can see the main parts, and it whirls!" Which in no way hinders Alain Delizee from reserving shock treatments for Blancpain tourbillons. And this is not confined to the Laboratory: "One of my best memories is having gone kitesurfing with a Fifty Fathoms Tourbillon prototype. I was the only one of all my kitesurfing friends to know the value and beauty of the object that I was putting through such rough treatment. And those magical moments in which I was bringing together kitesurfing and watchmaking, my two passions, were, selfishly, some especially intense ones."
With this memory, Alain Delizee is already delighting in the prospect of leaving his Le Sentier Laboratory's testing instruments for a few days to once again experience the exhilarating emotions of kitesurfing on the sea and waves of the Camargue region..
[Rating: 5 / 5 stars]
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