Do you dare to take down the plastics?

 

Come on then, if somebody held a gun to your head and you had to let go of one or the other, which would you keep?

Would love to have that same pair, what a week!

 

If someone had a gun to my head, my bet is he's taking both, or which ever I'm wearing.

In all honesty, I haven't had them long enough to make that decision yet.

 

Just got my email, almost at the finish line

 

That is a great combo!

 

Count me in as an arrival, unexpectedly. I was one of the many Californians deep into REM sleep when these were sold out, so I put myself on the wait list. I got a call today and boom! I'm traveling on biz, so won't see it until I get home, but by this point we've all seen them so I'll just count my blessings and enjoy the piece. Have faith my brothers and sisters on the wait list.

 

Be careful, the ST is unprotected on the side! Hope the crown of the 60th doesn't leave a scratch on your ST when you flip the latter next month.

 

I've heard from several sources that "suspicious" orders and waitlist places have been cancelled... be interesting to see how that affects the legit potential buyers on the waitlist (hopefully positively!).

 

What do your sources say regarding the root cause of the delay? Dial? Print on SL Subdials?

 

I have no information on that side of things... but to wildly speculate based on things that have been said publicly, and then throw in a little supposition:

In the interview that Raynald gave to the US newspaper, he expressed dissatisfaction with the summer shutdown, and the effects that this has on production... so I'd guess that impacted not just the ST, but delivery of all sorts of less closely watched models.

There's been a lot made of "QC" issues, but it's really a tiny quantity from the look of things, and as disapointing as it must be, they are resolving things very quickly.

Knowing now how fast this project was turned around, from the conversation with Robert-Jan, I do wonder if Omega overpromised on the delivery - with the 60th models already in production plan, along with everything else from Basel 2017, squeezing in 2012 additional pieces, of a different design, to the years manufacturing output, was maybe more complicated that they had expected.

 

According to my AD the delay was down to the ST holding up the standard Speedmaster build so they made the decsion to stagger delivery of the ST and focus capacity on the Speedmaster.

 

As far as I know, the Swatch group hasn't been doing the summer shut down for several years now (oldest newspaper article stating this I have found adhoc is from 2004). But of course this may disrupt the supply chain slightly. Warehousing is so old fashioned .

Focus on watches not already being presold is an educated guess from my side as well - I was just wondering if there are more reliable statements.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/04/fashion/watches-omega-swatch-group-speedmaster.html?mcubz=3


"August frustrates Raynald Aeschlimann, president and chief executive at Omega.

When he welcomed a guest to his office for a tour of the company’s new production building here early last month, the 47-year-old chief executive was clearly unhappy. Production was running at just 60 percent of capacity, largely because Omega suppliers still shut down for almost the entire month, a summer holiday tradition in Europe.

“I want to run a full 52 weeks,” he said, gesturing toward the adjacent building where, the tour later showed, rows of assembly desks were only about half occupied."

 

So Omega is not on summer holiday, it's the suppliers that are slowing down Omega production. Seems Omega could bring in enough raw material ahead of the summer holiday to hold them at 100% production capacity through the holiday. Not the most efficient from a lean manufacturing standpoint and ties up a bunch of cash, but better than running a factory at 60%.

 

I doubt lacking supply is the only reason. August is the main holiday season anyway - at least in countries where employees have a significant amount of paid leave. Executives don't tend to like this, but it's something that can be planned for.
This holds true for Michael O'Leary and for Raynald Aeschlimann. No reason for cancelling flights or not delivering watches .

 

Given that most of the suppliers are part of the SWATCH group, in my mind at least, it kinda equates to the same thing.

 

My statement about no summer shutdown is true for entire SWATCH group:
https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http://www.bielertagblatt.ch/nachrichten/wirtschaft/es-arbeiten-nicht-alle-durch&edit-text=&act=url
https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http://www.schweizerbank.ch/de/artikelanzeige/artikelanzeige.asp?pkBerichtNr=157652

 

I'm just going on what the big man told the dude with the notebook and the press credentials.

 

I've stumbled about these discrepancies in the big guys statements before. I hope you don't mind me challenging you a bit .

 

Not in the slightest.