Quartz crisis
The quartz crisis, more Quarzuhrkrise or Quarzuhrrevolution called the greatest economic crisis in American, European and Swiss watch industry from about 1970 to the mid-1980s.
History
By the early 1970s, established watch manufacturer focused on the development of the mechanical clock. The aim of the watch development is still improving accuracy and increasing the power reserve. More development goal is not only the economic production the durability and ruggedness of work and housing.
The then imported quartz watches CEH Beta (Prototype Beta 1 introduced in 1967 as the world's first quartz watch), and the first from December 25, 1969 commercially available quartz watch Seiko Astron SQ surpassed mechanical watches in all of these criteria. The first digital watch Pulsar ( with temporary LED display ) Hamilton was available for 2100 U.S. dollars, equivalent to the price of a small car in the Year 1972.
Through the use of a quartz crystal ( quartz watches ) as the clock source, the accuracy could be improved by as much as three orders of magnitude. A battery change was necessary about once per year. In addition, a Quarzuhrrohwerk could be manufactured at a fraction of the price, it consisted of fewer components than the mechanical counterpart and was at the same time ( at normal temperature range ) mechanically sensitive. A previously unknown accuracy of the general public has been made available through quartz wristwatches which previously was used only in science and technology.
Among American watch manufacturers survived only Timex. Also, Swiss and German watch company misjudged the trend change in the market and Japanese watch manufacturer flooded the market with inexpensive and accurate quartz watches. The Swiss watch industry was in 1970 about 50% of the world market of watches. In the period from 1970 to 1988 fell in the Swiss watch industry, the number of employees by two-thirds, from about 90,000 to about 28,000. Many watch manufacturers were fighting for economic survival and had to close for the most part. The number of establishments in the Swiss watch industry declined from 1600 in 1970 to 600 today Surprisingly, the Department of Mechanical Watches Grand Seiko Japanese watchmaker Seiko a victim of this crisis, it was closed in 1975. Escaped this fate only the top manufacturers in the Swiss watch industry, such as Audemars Piguet, Girard- Perregaux, Jaeger- LeCoultre, Patek Philippe and Rolex. These were forced to develop Quarzuhrkollektionen and bring to market.
The watchmaking schools had strong problems yet to find young talent and train. For example, was the state's watchmaking school in Hamburg due to lack of trainee verge of closing.
As one of the crucial steps to turnaround the commitment of the former insolvency administrator and management consultant Nicolas Hayek may be considered. Hayek should lead the two then severely depressed businesses ASUAG ( General Swiss Watch Industry AG) and the SSIH ( Société Suisse de l'Industrie Horlogère ) out of the crisis. He organized in 1983 the merger of the two companies, ceased production on a highly productive and automated production, brought the Swatch an inexpensive quartz watch with a varied design on the market and made for the utilization of subcontractors Nivarox and Comadur by the construction of an automatic - Swatch with the ETA caliber 2842nd As part of the automation, he reduced the number of necessary components of a Swatch to 51, compared to at least 125 parts in a mechanical clock. Hayek also recognized that the term Swiss Made still could be a decisive factor when buying image, and put it specifically in the marketing of a.