Aaron Lufkin Dennison was inspired by the techniques of production of the munitions factory of Springfield, Mass., the U.S.A. the principles were based mainly on a strict system of organization, the intensive use of machine tools and an elaborate system of controls in the course of production based on gauges.

This system, the purpose of which was to obtain an utmost precision in the production of the detached parts, so that those are perfectly interchangeable. It was a revolution compared to the standards of the time existing in the rest of the world, that is to say to produce only one certain part under its own roof, to obtain other detached parts, paid with the part by home-based workers, to buy the other parts according to the offer of the market.

The new system required to establish places of production adequate under the same control for the whole of the parts to manufacture and assemble. All was to be produced not according to the plans, ideas and disparate controls of workmen working separately, but under the direct supervision foremen of the company, with accurate checks carried out according to the gauges provided by the company, subjected to the time regulations, of cleanliness, precision and care prescribed by the company.

In the world there probably did not exist other industrial challenge, not of another system of production requiring a qualification level in businesses and technique as raised, a will in the continuation of research excellence, in the attention with the least most negligible detail and in perseverance for their final development, as the manufacture of watch of utmost precision.

Waltham very quickly discovered that it was necessary to invent, to develop and build these proper machine tools, these proper gauges especially adapted and adjusted with dimensions of the tiniest parts constitutive of a movement of watch. It was also necessary to invent new alloys and new materials.

The chronology of the training of the new methods of production with Waltham Watch Company can be divided into three phases:

• 1849-1857 to learn and try out

• 1858-1870 to refine the methods and the gauges
• 1871-1910 automation and organization of the production

Source: “American Pocket Watches, The Time Museum Historical Catalogs off”, by Donald Robert Hoke, published by “Time Museum” Rockford, Illinois, the U.S.A.

External bonds:

http://www.timemuseum.com/