Chopard - The new State-of-the-Art Watch Service Center in Miami
It was a dream for Karl-Friedrich Scheufele, co-President of Chopard. For 10 years, he has envisioned opening a service center that is exemplary of everything the brand stands for - and more. Now, after several years of work, a new $2million service center opens its doors in the Miami - suburb: Coral Gables.
The facility is housed in a building where there was once a small facility. However, the brand took over an entire floor just for the service center - where it will repair watches and jewelry, as well as offer a host of other services, including custom engraving, that heretofore could only be offered in Switzerland. New incredibly expensive machines - such as laser engraving, laser soldering, top-quality water resistance pods, and more - bring the service center far into the future. It is the largest US facility to date, and the most state-of-the-art in the world.
"Even my watchmakers in Switzerland would be jealous to see the site," quips Scheufele. "It sets new standards for us, and that is exactly what I wanted."
A total of 12 watchmakers are on premises at the new service center - which will repair most timepieces with an incredible 10-day turnaround time. For watches still under warranty, the goal is a five-day turnaround period.
"We found that when we analyzed why watch repairs were taking six to eight weeks, most of the time was spent with the watches in transit and with the enormous amounts of administrative paper work that goes along with that," says Scheufele.
The service center, which will handle repairs for the United States (along with the New York facility), Latin America and the Caribbean boasts an entire area dedicated to quality control, cleaning and washing the rhodium plating, polishing and more. It also stocks an amazing number of spare parts, including movements and dials.
Several of the brand's top Swiss watchmakers have come from Fleurier and Geneva workshops to oversee the training and ensure the craftsmanship taking place in Miami is exactly as it is in Switzerland. Currently the center can repair most Chopard watches except for the complications and the L.U.C movements. However, plans are in place to bring the Center's top watchmaker to train in Switzerland on repairing the Manufacture L.U.C calibers so that even these repairs can be done on site in Florida next year.
According to Andre Theurillat, technical coordinator and area manager for the service center, "Chopard takes in about 6,000 to 7,000 repairs annually for all of the Americas - just about 4 percent of all annual sales. In this facility, we don't do any small jobs that a local area retailer could do, such as strap changes, etc. We focus on complete service just as a customer would get if their watch was returned to Switzerland."
Indeed, each watch is received, logged in, taken apart, inspected, repaired, quality-control tested, and returned right from the service center in incredible time. "There is no excuse for repairs to take weeks," says Scheufele. "When you have top craftsmen and the necessary parts, it should go smoothly. With this center we are, without a doubt, perfecting the heritage and tradition of watchmaking that is hundreds of years bold, but also we are sharing the fact that mechanical watchmaking has an important place in the modern world. There is always progress to be made."
The service center also plays home to a state-of-the-art 5S training workshop that is designed to offer interactive training so that local jewelers in various Latin American cities can learn how to do simple repairs on the spot - thereby eliminating the need to ship such items to the Center. The 5S workshop is named for the Japanese words Seiri, Seiton, Seiso, Seiketsu and Shitsuke, which stand for "sorting, setting in order to flow, systematic cleaning, standardizing and sustaining (through service).
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