#TheWorldTomorrow: microtechnology & quality control in watchmaking
43rd broadcast of #LeMondeDeDemain on Léman Bleu
The EPHJ trade show, which takes place in Geneva from June 6 to 9, 2023, was a special occasion for Le Monde De Demain to leave the traditional Leman Bleu TV studios for an interview. For 20 years, the EPHJ show has been the only one of its kind in the world, bringing together professionals from the high-precision watchmaking, jewelry, microtechnology and medtech industries. An international hub for innovation and business between professionals, it is an eagerly-awaited rendezvous each year for the high-precision market to discover trends and new technologies.
And for this edition, Le Monde De Demain focuses on innovation in quality control, a sector that continues to grow in Geneva. Developments in imaging technologies, advances in miniaturization and the use of innovative materials all help to meet the ever-increasing demands of quality control and overall product improvement. These methods and know-how are applied in the watchmaking industry, which is increasingly converging with the medical technology sector. Precision and quality are the watchwords in these fields, where technology transfer from microtechnology to industry is accelerating.
Replay of the program on microtechnology & quality control in the watchmaking sector:
Who are these specialized watchmaking microstructures that support the sector's flagships in their post-production stages?
Report MDTESTS: funny machines for instrumental testing...
MDTests designs and develops its own test equipment, simple, intuitive tools that guarantee product performance. Whether it's resistance to shocks or falls, or an analysis of the force with which a needle is driven to ensure that it holds properly, MDTests puts its products through their paces under conditions as close to the real thing as possible. As for the question: how does one come to specialize in microtechnology for watchmaking quality control? Malik Dhifallah, Director of MDTests and also a teacher at the Ecole d'Horlogerie de Lancy, points out that although technical studies are essential, there is no set curriculum for such professions:
" I'm a bit of a jack-of-all-trades, curious, and I started developing my own equipment. The curriculum, I'd say, there's basic training, and then there's really the curiosity to develop to get to a goal."
Report Rubis Control: cutting-edge technologies for metrology & quality control
Located in the heart of the ZIMEYSAVER industrial zone, the Rubis Control laboratory has focused its skills on specific conformity and measurement segments. Using mainly optical technologies and innovations, Rubis Control will be able to check the conformity of components on already machined products. Multi-sensor machines, scans and high-precision probing techniques will be used to collect data for extremely precise calculation of dimensions, thus validating the correct manufacture of the part.
Another of the laboratory's key areas of expertise, also based on image analysis systems, is tomography. By transfer of technology, this method, borrowed directly from the medtech sector, uses X-rays to evaluate components through the material, thereby verifying their integrity, assembly and watertightness. This saves the watchmaker several days of dismantling time.
Interview with Frédéric Gouverd, General Manager of Boucledor
A leading manufacturer of gold buckles and clasps for the high-end watchmaking industry, Boucledor, through its Managing Director Frédéric Gouverd, presents one of its flagship products and, in the process, sheds light on trends and innovations in the watchmaking sector. From homothetic and gendered design, to components more suited to women in particular, to the manufacturing secrets that ensure a product's plural conformity, Frédéric Gouverd points out that the notion of quality control is no longer confined to increasingly complex micro-technical sub-assemblies, but actually takes place as soon as the material is received:
"(...) Quality is also quality that cannot be seen. Ci.e. today, if we want to make a beautiful product, if we want to polish it correctly, we have to check the material as soon as it comes in, check the metallographic structure, i.e. we use very powerful microscopes to see if the material we have received corresponds to what we ordered."
