If you are suggesting Omega doesn't make it's own products to a large degree, what exactly are you basing this on?
Do they have their own factory (which is not for assembling)? I do not know about one. Cases are sourced from other companies. Movements are made by ETA (even Omega does not call their movements inhouse- if I'm not mistaken), they just assemble the parts in their factory.
Omega has always done this, even before the quartz crisis. Omega has just finished a new factory for the assembly last fall:
Not sure if they are going to build more for the component manufacturing, but really what difference does this make? There is no universally agreed upon definition for what "in-house" actually means. Rolex had all their movements made by Aegler, and only bought that company out in 2004, but no one cares and still consider them all in-house...
This focus on the manufacturing details within a large conglomerate have never really made much sense to me...businesses do what they do to maximize profits, not to cater to those who want them to meet some vague term such as being fully "in-house."
I accept the fact that it does not mean a lot for you, or for others, it does count for me. And as this topic is the right place in my opinion to tell what I feel could be done better by them.
Just to highlight 1 point which is a lot easier to do if you do something in-house. Quality assurance, or quality monitoring, or anyhow we call it. If you just buy something from others it is a lot easier to miss manufacturing mistakes.
I liked Tag Heuer's idea of letting the public decide the new Autavia. I also liked the collaboration with Robert Jan for the Speedy Tuesday.
What I would love are: thinner cases, and the ability to custom build using and online tool or in the OB, smaller boxes, to stop making re-issues of older models and focus on something new and different, to stop making so many gaudy looking variations of nice designs (i'm looking at you Bond SMPc 300 Commander's edition).
Also, shorter names for the models 😜
