Horological Meandering

pfang56
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Supply chain, allocations, and reality?

One of my biggest pet peeves - is the seemingly rather serendipitous appearance of some fine, limited edition watches with the "wishlists" of collectors. I'm sure some of you have made pre-orders of some fine automobiles, which at most have a two year time from order to delivery, where customization can go from the smallest bespoke stitching, to changes to the exhaust and suspension, as well as simply to providing your custom initials on the headrest. To the extent in some cases, there are even websites that show your fine car at various stages of production, with videos and photos and clear timelines. In the end, there is generally accuracy within a few weeks or months on the delivery date.

Maybe I'm being totally naive but I'm becoming even more surprised that the supply chain for fine timepieces, is not nearly as predictable and advanced as automobiles. Granted, there perhaps is a lot more hand craftsmanship with some purported watch brands, but with some Auto brands, finding and stitching the ideal colour match for a bespoke interior, or molding and manufacturing suspension coils, must be a pretty incredible ordeal. Yet, it seems the automobile industry, with much more parts and complexity, similar volumes and with lower margins - seems to deliver reasonably consistent and predictable turnaround times.

So, I'm curious if anybody is equally frustrated with this? I mean, wouldn't it be incredible if we could go to Brand X, and assuming I have a long-standing relationship with them, make an order for a particular model that is announced, put a deposit, and have a promised delivery date accurate to the month? Why is this so much more difficult for watchmakers to align manufacture with demand? I mean, this would be incredible and truth be told, I would even pay an extra premium for this clarity, and maybe, this would take out some of the flippers. I would also be happy to wait (and not be so impatient), if there is transparency of the delivery date.

But, I'm also wondering if in reality, the manufacturers already know exactly the cycle times for each model (they are Swiss after all) and this is some massive conspiracy to obfuscate and build some kind of artificial perception? And, is this some way to make buyers more addicted to particular brands with this ambiguity?

Or, are they really not great at supply management?

Would be curious how others think...

Anyway, cheers all!!

Peter

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