Logical cohesion was therefore lacking in both production systems and marketing. No corporate group had taken the lead even by the late 1970s. The whole operations were coordinated by cooperative associations. Small and medium-sized independent family businesses with traditional technologies manufactured parts for companies or brands of the same groups. Many timepiece manufacturers worked on a small production scale for individual brands and parts. The Swiss timepiece industry originally adopted horizontal division of labor as a manufacturing method. This whole field was destroyed by the low-priced precision of the quartz watch. Switzerland and the United States used to make pin-lever type watches called Roskopf watches to support their timepiece industries. Watch sales sharply declined, forcing many watchmakers out of business.Īccording to one set of estimates, the number of Swiss watch companies dropped from over 1,600 in 1970 to fewer than 600 by the middle of 1980’s and the number of employees in the industry plummeted from 90,000 in 1970 to 33,000 in 1984. In Switzerland, the soaring price of the Swiss franc, rises in production and raw material costs due to the oil shock, rises in labor costs, etc. In the United States, Waltham was acquired by a Japanese company. For example, exports of watches from Switzerland in the early 1980’s dropped to half the levels recorded in 1974, their peak year for exports. They suffered a devastating blow as a consequence. Also in 1963, Suwa Seikosha participated in the small crystal clocks division of the observatory competition in Switzerland for the first time.Īs many of these watches were exported, Swiss and American watch brands and manufacturers tied to tradition were slow in responding to the mass production of watches and introduction of quartz watches. This led to the development of the world’s first portable quartz crystal chronometer, a timepiece used in the Tokyo Olympic Games. Suwa Seikosha also launched the “59A Project” for the development of new watches other than mechanical watches. Quartz master clocks for broadcasting stations were commercialized from 1959 and quartz master clocks for ships followed from 1962. Seiko also focused on the development and manufacture of quartz clocks at the forefront of electronics. Next came the commercialization of the “Cellstar,” a portable tabletop clock that applied the same mechanism with a transistor balance, in 1962. In 1960 Seiko commercialized the “Sonora,” a transistor clock that improved accuracy with a transistor pendulum. While maintaining its constant work to improve the accuracy and quality of mechanical watches, Seiko was inspired by American manufacturers and took on the challenge of developing an electronics technology capable of controlling time with higher vibration by changing the power source from springs to batteries and combining transistors and quartz with coils.Ī transistor is a device that amplifies electric signals by connection to semiconductors.
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