Audemars Piguet (AP) has formally inaugurated the Arc Manufacture in its historical home of Le Brassus. Designed by de Giuli & Portier of Geneva, the 23,700-square metre building will accommodate 700 employees under one roof — a number that would have been almost unheard of in the days of the historical établissage system. It connects to, and partially wraps around, the existing Manufacture des Forges, which was completed in 2008 and housed around 300 employees — an impressive figure for its time.

The expanded manufacture should ultimately help boost production, especially considering it was designed with Industry 4.0 in mind. In other words, it’s a smart factory. This includes a Goods-to-Person (GTP) automated sort and retrieval system which uses 66 robots to pick the needed components, which are then delivered by robotic shuttle.

While such systems are already used by high-volume luxury watch brands like Rolex and Omega, few haute horlogerie brands have the volumes to justify such an investment. According to AP, the GTP system saves an average of 15 seconds per operation.

But more than scale, the new manufacture should deliver higher quality of product – namely superior reliability and less defects – across AP’s offerings.

Like other new manufactures of its type, the Arc is extremely energy efficient as well thanks to 321 metres of electrochromic glass, which can automatically change opacity to regulate the amount of light, and heat, allowed in. The building is capable of recycling waste heat generated by the machinery, and the green roof is partially paved with solar panels.

The Arc isn’t AP’s only infrastructure change due in 2026. The brand’s case and bracelet division, currently based in the Geneva suburb of Meyrin, is set to move into a new home later this year.

It remains to be seen what production volumes AP will realise once these facilities are up and running, but in a 2022 interview then-chief executive François-Henry Bennahmias said the brand was building the infrastructure to produce up to 65,000 watches annually, up from around 50,000 at the time.

Episode 27 of the SJX Podcast opens the archives to find the most impractical and illegible watches that somehow still manage to be worthwhile despite the triumph of form over function. It’s a difficult formula to get right, and the landscape of fine watchmaking is littered with examples of watches that sacrificed too much at the altar of fashion. But those that strike the right balance are especially memorable.

SJX and Brandon also discuss a couple of emerging independents from as far afield as Japan and Finland.

Listen now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube.