Inside The Manufacture A Backstage Pass To The Production Of The MoonSwatch And Scuba Fifty Fathoms

This story was originally published by Hodinkee Japan on May 29, 2024. The accompanying text has been translated from Japanese to English. 

As you most likely know by now, the MoonSwatch is a quartz watch modeled after the Omega Speedmaster. The series debuted in March 2022, featuring 11 color variations made of Bioceramic with motifs inspired by the Sun, the Moon, and the planets (plus a dwarf planet) of our solar system. They were/are not available online, and huge lines formed at over 100 brick-and-mortar Swatch boutiques around the world on the launch day, becoming a worldwide social phenomenon. The brand subsequently kept releasing single-day, one-shot Mission to Moonshine Gold series on the day of full moon each month, and the Scuba Fifty Fathoms in collaboration with Blancpain made another headline.

These projects are led by the Swatch Group CEO Nick Hayek, Jr. "The MoonSwatch projects happen in this very room," he said as he pulled out a notebook containing idea sketches for a newspaper advertisement for the newly released Snoopy collab MoonSwatch. You wouldn't think the CEO of the wristwatch giant starting and pushing the project forward himself. We asked the all-knowing Mr. Hayek how he pulled off those massively successful projects.

"Being a high-quality product is an absolute prerequisite," he said. "On top of that, the timing of the release was the key to the success of this project. It had to be a surprise."

The very first MoonSwatch release date was originally set to May 2022. Ultimately it was pulled in by a whole two months, releasing right before Watches & Wonders in March.

"The watch brands, journalists and the retailers were celebrating new releases with no invitations to the consumers," said Hayek. "I thought it was the most Swatch move to introduce the MoonSwatch to the entire world, to the public directly."

Swatch Group has not attended Watches & Wonders after Baselworld perished, and he doesn't believe that will change in the future.

"Watches & Wonders is a gathering of the elitists, and it is excluding the most important element of our industry: the consumers all around the world," he said. "It is a comfortable place for the insiders, seeing all retailers and journalists in one shot, but a real innovation will emerge from disruption, not in a protected environment favored by the system."

One of the things that really surprised me during the launch of these projects was the secrecy that they perfectly maintained. The media and the industry folks might have criticized the product if the project details leaked before the launch. The release achieved the maximum impact because the information was perfectly guarded. How was this possible?

"We had just a few people from Swatch, Omega, and ETA when the project first kicked off in the Spring of 2021," Hayek said. "A lot more people joined the project over time, but we still kept the information safeguarded because every single person in the project had a real pride working on it. All of us knew the impact this new product would bring to the market, and we sincerely believed in success."

This ultra-secrecy was maintained not only for the MoonSwatch, but also the Scuba Fifty Fathoms project as well. I quietly scratched out "What's the next collab after Blancpain?" from my question list as I listened to him.

Swatch's SISTEM51 is the world's first mechanical movement built entirely by machines in an automated manufacturing line. This revolutionary movement was first announced at Baselworld 2013, marking the brand's 30th anniversary. As the name suggests, the movement is made of only 51 parts (whereas a typical mechanical movement has at least 100 parts), reducing the complexity drastically.

Actually, the number 51 also has a significance related to Swatch's very first quartz movement debuted in 1983. Swatch achieved a fully autonomous production process of a watch by reducing the parts count the from typical 91 to 51. SISTEM51 took that symbolic number to the mechanical movement. "The automated assembly line does not simply reduce the production time but also improves the production quality, enabling a mass production at scale," said Hayek. "And that contributes to ultimately bringing high-quality products to the consumers."

SISTEM51's 51 parts can be broken into five pre-assembled modules: automatic winding module including the rotor, mechanical stem module, escapement module, wheel train module, and the module consists of hands and date wheel.

"There is only one screw holding the rotor to the movement," said Hayek. "It's often reported as if the whole movement was held with one screw, but that's not true. Each module is laser-welded." We'll talk more about the modularization contributing to the production automation later.

In my review video of the Scuba Fifty Fathoms Ocean of Storms, I touched on Blancpain's marine conservation efforts, where I brought up SISTEM51 being un-serviceable and wondered if there was more Swatch could do for the environment. I opted to ask that very question to Mr. Hayek himself.

"We believe SISTEM51 is one of the most eco-friendly movements in the Swiss made watches," Hayek said as he got on to the edge of his chair. "Using fewer parts and automated production process contribute to reducing the energy consumption significantly, and smaller parts count means minimizing resource consumption and reduction of manufacturing waste." 

Mr. Hayek talked about the negative impact on the environment that overhauling a watch may bring. "To overhaul, you'll have to stock up repair parts for a long term," he said. "This means keeping a large number of parts at each regional customer service center, resulting in using more energy and resource for both production and storage. On top of that, there is no certainty all produced parts are going to be used, which may lead to creating more waste down the line."

This came as a shock to me. I think it's a common notion that a mechanical watch is more environmentally friendly product compared to something like a smartwatch, which becomes obsolete as the manufacturer stops updating the operating system in mere five-years time. However, I hadn't thought of the possibility that SISTEM51 could be more eco-friendly than conventional mechanical watches.

I personally own three SISTEM51 watches. The first one I picked up is now six years old, and it is still keeping good time.

"SISTEM51 is designed to work seven to eight years at minimum, up to 10 years maintenance-free," said Hayek. "This is reducing the environmental impact in the entire lifecycle of a product, contributing to better sustainability in the long run." I'm also told that Swatch's standard policy for watch repair is to replace parts if you bring in a broken watch to their boutique, and the parts taken in will be recycled to manufacture new products.

Swatch Group-owned ETA produces the MoonSwatch and Scuba Fifty Fathoms. ETA has 17 factories across Switzerland. Their movement production facility, which was the first of the two factories I visited, is in Boncourt, about an hour drive from Biel, where the Swatch Group HQ is located.

This facility is co-operated with Nivarox-FAR. ETA takes care of the plate, bridge, and other component manufacturing, as well as the movement assembly, including regulation, while Nivarox-FAR governs the escapement module production.

The line like "the first and still only mechanical movement with entirely automated production" is something we read often to describe SISTEM51. We were excited to catch a glimpse of that magical process.

The first impression as we walked in was that it didn't feel much different from the factories of higher-end brands like Tudor and IWC that we have seen in the past. The biggest difference was, obviously, the level of automation in the production line. We didn't think we saw a lot of staff on the floor, but we were told there were about 400 employees between manufacturing and management. Basically, humans are there to assist the machines – like setting up, solving issues, and performing maintenance on them.

As I kept shooting fanatically with my camera, the tour guide told me that there are about 800,000 photographs taken daily in this factory. In each step of the assembly process, all parts are getting photographed and those out-of-spec will be rejected automatically. Since the modules will get welded together, defects must be identified and removed at the beginning.

There were so many clever tricks to optimize the manufacturing. One of the most impressive bits I saw was the parts packed in plastic rolls. They get fed into machines and assembled automatically, and complete modules come in no time.

The removal of manual labor does not only reduce the time needed to produce a watch, but it also contributes to improving the reliability of the movement. SISTEM51's 21,600 bph, 90-hour power reserve, and +/- 10 seconds per day specifications – backed by 17 patents – are made possible by these automations. Contaminants and dusts are actively removed throughout the manufacturing process, enabling a mass production of movements with longevity and without overhaul.

According to Mr. Hayek, Swatch Group developed SISTEM51 to, in part, prove that you could produce high-quality movements in-house. It was their answer to the long-discussed importance of being able to manufacture movements in house in the Swiss watchmaking industry.

"Even today, well resourced groups don't want to manufacture their own movements," Hayek said. "They just like to buy standard movements and add some personalization, pretending as if they made them. Why they want to do that? It's simple: more profit."

After the tour of movement manufacturing, we took one hour to head back to Biel, then another 20 minutes to Grenchen. I was sent right into a large conference room, where I was greeted by the director of the factory. "Welcome! What you see here basically sums what we do there," he said.

The MoonSwatch and Scuba Fifty Fathoms' dials, cases, and bezels, among other items, sat on the table. This facility manufactures exterior parts like dials and cases. Those parts, as well as the movements made in Boncourt, are sent to another ETA facility further north for the final assembly.

While the dials are made with lacquer paint like other manufactures, ETA mixes and creates their own colors. We also saw a curious use of a digital printing process as well. On the MoonSwatch, digital printing is used solely for the planet image on the battery cover. On the Scuba Fifty Fathoms, however, the process is used for the nudibranch illustration on the rotor, gradation effect on the dial, and ultimately the entire plane of the assembled movement facing the display caseback as well.

The text on the dial is done by a traditional pad printing method – there are nine pad variations for the MoonSwatch, and seven for the Scuba Fifty Fathoms to create the model-specific details. Each dial is stamped up to six times to build up the depth, which results in the pop and colorful design of the watch that Swatch is best known for.

Observing the manufacturing process of Bioceramic was one of the aspects that I was most looking forward to in this tour. "The manufacturing process of Bioceramic you'll see there is like making a great pasta," Mr. Hayek had told us earlier with a smile on his face.

Bioceramic is made of 2/3-part Zirconium Oxide Ceramic Powder and 1/3-part castor oil. By adding the pigments to the mix, you can create a unique color palette.

In the manufacturing process, these materials get blended with twin screws while being heated. The liquified mix is then kept at a certain temperature and treated to be degassed.

Next, the material, now in clay paste form, gets pressed out, which indeed resembles the pasta making process. The material is cut into chips, which then get filtered to make sure the chip size is correct. The latter part is crucial for the molding process of the case that comes next.

The parts such as the case are made with an injection molding process – the Bioceramic chips get reheated and liquified, injected into a metal mold, then rapidly cooled and solidified. Bioceramic is used not only for the case, but also the bezel, battery hatch, strap keeper and so on, and there are molds for each.

I learned during this visit that even the crystal and transparent portion of the rotor are made of Polyamide. On the Scuba Fifty Fathoms, the display caseback is made of sapphire to make the watch thinner, but the front Polyamide crystal has AR coating on both sides just like the sapphire crystal.

Nearly all steps of Bioceramic creation to molding are automated, but there are some human interventions necessary, like visually inspecting color matching to maintain the quality of exterior aesthetics.

Swatch has been pushing the creative boundaries in the realm of casual wristwatches. The brand brought prestigious Swiss watchmaking to much broader audience with a plastic quartz watch made of just 51 parts in 1983. And they did it again with SISTEM51 in 2013, transforming the mechanical watches to something everyone can get their hands on and enjoy.

The MoonSwatch and the Scuba Fifty Fathoms were born to bring the joy of owning Omega Speedmaster and Blancpain Fifty Fathoms respectively to a broader audience at an accessible price point. At the same time, you can forget about the originals that these watches are modeled after and simply enjoy the fun product on your wrist as well.

However, I think it's worth knowing that Swatch is always challenging the status quo to bring a new value to the entire watch industry, while pushing the envelope to create more ecological and sustainable product development processes. What will they do next? I'm sure they have something up their sleeves to surprise us again.

For details, Visit Swatch official site.

This article was translated from Japanese by Suguru H. Nishioka