I think these common Omega delays just go to show that they really have some process and perhaps system integration issues within the company.

They are not as vertical a manufacturer as they would like the general public to believe. I would guess that this Seamaster delay is probably an issue with a third party supplier. Perhaps the engraved exhibition case back, not exactly complex, could have had some QA issues? Movement is the standard 8806 being used on several other watches (railmasters, new SMP etc.). Dial and case are not exactly bleeding edge either. Could also be an issue with their new facility.
Whatever the root cause, certainly a another moment for them.

 

I'd like to know if the hour markers (1,2,4,5,7,8,10,11) have a lumed dot... or it is only a reflection of the inner ring of the bezel?

 

The hour markers do have a little luminous dots on the outer side of the hour markers. I'm struggling to take better pictures of the watch from my camera phone, apologies for the poor images

 

Thank you sir.

 

At least for the small second version this is obviously not so…

 

It's now April and still no sign of it turning up

Hi
Has your watch turned up yet ?

 

Hello,

Sadly no news yet...

 

Not heard either...

 

So strange that Omega is quiet. Dealers in the dark too....

 

It's very bizarre I'm beginning to think it's not going to arrive at all, you'd expect to have seen a few turn up by now.

 

My people tell me that it has been a problem with the dial manufacturer. No firm date yet.

 

If you look at the Swatch group annual report, it will shed some light on the situation...

"Production companies in the Habillage sector (cases, dials, watch hands, etc.) worked at or even above capacity limits, which led to significant delivery delays, mainly for products for Omega and Longines."

But it looks like they are working on things...

"Outlook for 2019

The Swatch Group anticipates healthy growth in 2019, despite the strong comparison basis in the first half of 2018. Demand is good and production problems and bottlenecks, particularly in the Habillage sector, will be resolved in the first semester."

So it appears you should start seeing some relief in the delays this year. I think it's difficult to precisely determine what sales will be across all brands in the Swatch group, and since they all share common suppliers (suppliers within the Swatch group, not third parties as you have suggested) they would have to prioritize what gets made and what gets delayed. I would think delays in a model like this would have a much smaller impact than they would with a new SMP or Speedmaster model, or even a Constellation that are apparently very popular in Asia. So if I was making the choice, I would be delaying this one rather than a bread and butter product.

Ramping up production to meet spikes in demand isn't easy - I've been there many times as an engineer under pressure to get a new manufacturing line running, or to come up with ideas to make the existing line more efficient while not sacrificing quality. It's easy to judge harshly when you are on the outside and not the people who are under the gun to get things done...

Saying they should be planning better is true, but only to a point. Sometimes there is no quick fix.

Cheers, Al

 

Good point
With regards to prioritizing why are they churning out the City limited editions over an anniversary watch, I'm afraid the 6 P's come to mind.

 

But for those of who have been waiting since October and or have deposits down, some word from the company is expected. Silence is the worst.

 

Really? Do you know that the sales/deposits for the 1948 edition are stronger than those of the city editions? If they are supplying one product over another you can assume one of two things:

1 - They are prioritizing the product that is going to get them the best income, so based on sales or profit margins.

2 - The bottle neck in production may exist for one product but not the other.

Again people do tend to forget on watch forums that there is only one person the company is ultimately accountable to - the shareholder.

I agree. Have you reached out to Omega directly?

 

I've emailed them on 2 or 3 occasions

I have on 2 or 3 occasions this is the reply I got back in January after they missed the December delivery, my dealer hasn't had anything from them apart from an email saying it would be arriving mid March.

Dear Sir,

Thank you for your email and thank you for your continued interest.

These watches are expected to be delivered to our official stockists over the next month. Please may I suggest contacting your local retailer directly for further information.

Thank you,

Omega

 

Really interesting intel, it certainly sounds plausible and at the engineering level I have every sympathy with people trying to juggle all the moving parts. You cannot get it perfect and timetables change.

From my perspective it’s a failure of communication: how hard would it be to issue a statement like “To those customers awaiting shipment thank you for your continued support of the Omega brand, we care passionately that our products meet the most exacting standards and while we at the moment cant confirm a delivery window we are very focused on this and working as hard as possible to get your watches to you etc etc”.

Instead there has been nothing.

I can only guess someone has made the calculation that it’s better to stay quiet as talking about it would only draw attention to the issue and potentially put future purchasers off. Most people are already sold on the watch and have put down a deposit and will hang in there. Well not me anymore I have cancelled my order...

 

If this was a one off, I would be less "harsh".

Omega are repeat offenders in terms of missing product release deadlines and even if we were to give them some slack and say that they delay because they have good QA, well they have also managed to both delay previous LEs and issue watches with quality control issues, ST#1 was a recent example. On a positive note, they have corrected any quality issues under warranty quite effectively post launch.

Overall I am an enthusiast of the brand, and although I agree that their production planning integration problems might take time to fix, I think the main problem they need to sort out first is clear communication to clients as to what is going on.

 

Have you ever been directly involved in creating a new production line for something? I can tell you this takes enormous amounts of time to do, and the process of designing the line, writing purchasing and technical specs for all the equipment, getting those specs approved in house, then sending them out for tender alone can take many months. Then when you get the pricing back and select the vendor and issue a PO, it can easily take 12-18 months for the machinery to be produced, then it has to be run off (usually at the vendor's site), final approvals signed off, then shipped to your facility. Then you have to integrate it into your facility without disrupting the current production (often the window for this is some sort of annual shutdown period), and then it can take months to get it all debugged and running at full capacity.

I've done this many times and it's not a small undertaking by any means. The company I worked for went through a program once called ACI - Accelerated Continuous Improvement, and the timelines were very short to make decisions, write budgets, get equipment ordered and put in place. Even though I had many millions of dollars at my disposal for these projects, you can only move so fast as outside resources will often be the limiting factor, and even these projects often took 2 years to complete on an accelerated time frame.

I know people often think that you simply order machinery and it arrives next week, but that's far from being the reality in most cases. These bottlenecks can take years to resolve, so if that is really the reasons for all these delays as the Swatch information suggests, it's not surprising in the least that the delays haven't been limited to just one product launch.

As I've already said, I agree on the communication front. It seems the plan is to stay silent, and to me that sounds more like a marketing type decision than anything else...