The Concepto Watch Factory, a Swiss manufactory that develops and manufacturers top level watch movements and complex mechanisms in-house, has set up a new company called Optimo Assortments which hopes to become a serious alternative to Swatch Group-manufactured parts.  As Reuters recently reported, Swatch Group is the industry’s parts “supermarket”, with its ETA unit providing as much as 80 percent of Swiss movements and its Nivarox arm dominating the market for escapement and oscillating parts, which make up the heart of a watch’s mechanism.  However for many years Swatch Group has been in the process of reducing its watch supply to rival watchmakers, setting off a scramble in the industry to source alternative parts.

According to WatchPro, the La Chaux-de-Fonds company has the capacity to produce 400,000 kits a year after its chief executive Valérien Jaquet set up a laboratory capable of producing watch components on an industrial scale, including balance wheels, springs, pallet levers and escape wheels.  Optimo Assortments has said it will aim to produce 50,000 kits by the second half of 2012, rising to 200,000 in 2013.

Concepto Watch Factory SA was founded in March 2006 and is located in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland, a major center of Swiss watchmaking.  Today the company employs 90 people and provides design, prototyping, manufacturing and assembly of mechanical calibers and large complications.  Valérien Jaquet is the company’s founder and CEO.Learn more about Concepto at http://www.conceptowatch.ch)

The Concepto Movement Families