Oris
| Oris SA
|
|
|---|---|
 |
|
| legal form | Corporation |
| founding | 1904 |
| Seat | Hölstein , Switzerland |
| management | Ulrich W. Herzog, Chairman of the Board of Directors
Claudine Gertiser-Herzog, Co-CEO Rolf Studer, Co-CEO |
| Number of employees | 140 (2017) |
| Branch | Watch manufacture |
| Website | www.oris.ch |
The Oris SA is a Swiss manufacturer of mechanical watches . The company, based in Hölstein in the canton of Baselland , was founded in 1904.
history
Founding time
In 1904, the watch factory Lohner & Co in Hölstein in the Waldenburg district of Baselbiet was closed. The two watchmakers Georges Christian and Paul Cattin from the watch town of Le Locle bought the existing buildings. On June 1, 1904, they founded the Oris company, named after a stream running nearby , and they began manufacturing pocket watches on an industrial scale . Oris employed 67 people in the year it was founded.
In 1906 an assembly plant and a second factory were opened in nearby Holderbank . Another factory followed in Como in 1908 . In 1911, Oris was the largest employer in Hölstein with 300 employees . The company built houses and apartments for employees in the village, and further production facilities were added outside of Hölstein: in Courgenay in 1916 , in Herbetswil and Ziefen in 1925 .
First wristwatches
Oris expanded its product range with the opening of the factory in Ziefen and the electroplating plant in Herbetswil . The company began to equip pocket watches with wrist lugs ; Oris thus entered the wristwatch market.
Company co-founder Georges Christian died in 1927. Jacques David LeCoultre, the grandson of Antoine LeCoultre and pioneer of the merger of LeCoultre with Jaeger LeCoultre in 1937, became managing director. In 1928, Georges Christian's brother-in-law Oscar Herzog became managing director. He then led the company for 43 years.
First alarm clock
In 1936 Oris opened its own dial factory in Biel / Bienne . The company now produced almost all elements of its products itself. In 1938 the company developed its first pilot's watch, the Big Crown. The eponymous oversized crown should enable pilots to operate the watch with leather gloves. This watch is still produced today in variations.
The Second World War led to a significant drop in sales, because the markets abroad in particular largely collapsed. In order to keep operations going, Oris expanded its range of clocks to include alarm clocks . After the end of the war, the company expanded again.
The Swiss watch statute
On March 12, 1934, the Swiss watch statute came into force. This emergency law, which was intended to protect the Swiss watch industry, prohibited Swiss watch companies from introducing new technologies without official approval. For Oris, the clock statute proved to be an obstacle; because while other companies were able to adopt the more precise lever escapement before the clock statute came into force, Oris movements had to make do with the traditional pin lever escapement or Roskopf escapement .
Despite success with this technology, Oris took action against the watch statute. In 1956, Director General Oscar Herzog hired the lawyer Rolf Portmann, who was solely dedicated to the fight against the watch statute. As a result, the watch statute was gradually liberalized until it was abolished in 1971.
The quartz crisis
At the end of the 1960s, 44% of all watches sold worldwide came from Switzerland. Oris with its 800 employees produced 1.2 million watches annually and was one of the ten largest watch manufacturers in the world. The machines and tools that it needed for watch production were developed in-house; around 40 watch engineers and watchmakers were trained each year. But then the turning point came: in the 1970s and early 1980s, quartz watches from Asia gained massive market shares. The so-called quartz crisis marked the end of 900 watch companies in Switzerland and unemployment for two thirds of all those employed in the watch industry. The market share of Swiss manufacturers dropped to 13 percent worldwide.
Oris gave up its independence in 1970 and became part of Allgemeine Schweizerische Uhrenindustrie AG (ASUAG) , the forerunner of the later Swatch Group . Oris began making quartz watches as well. But this did not bring the success back: In the early 1980s, Oris had only a few dozen employees. In 1981 the production of own raw works was given up.
New beginning
Like many other watch manufacturers, Oris was about to close. Managing director Rolf Portmann - who was significantly involved in the case of the watch statute - and marketing director Ulrich W. Herzog took over the remainder of the company in 1982 as part of a management buyout. They decided to exclusively manufacture mechanical watches in the medium price segment with the newly founded and again independent Oris AG.
Recent developments
Since the turn of the millennium, the company has concentrated on the areas of diving, culture, aviation and motorsport. The red rotor has been a registered trademark and distinguishing feature since 2002 . In 2004, the Quick-Lock crown was created, which can be screwed tight with a 120-degree turn. The Rotation Safety System (2009) makes it possible to lock the unidirectional rotating bezel on diving watches to prevent accidental adjustment underwater. In 2013 Oris patented the first mechanical depth gauge, the Aquis Depth Gauge, in which water is pressed under pressure through a small opening at 12 o'clock into a channel; the resulting watermark shows the depth. In 2014, to mark the company's 110th anniversary, Oris launched an in-house developed movement for the first time in 35 years : the Caliber 110 with a patented non-linear 10-day power reserve .
The Oris Star ChronOris and the Oris Diver "waterproof" have been reissued in the design of the 1960s and 1970s.
Diving watch Oris Aquis Depth Gauge HighRes 3254
Oris Caliber 110
Oris Sixtyfive, new edition of the Oris Diver "waterproof" from the 1960s
Important watches in the company's history
- Big Crown (1938)
- 8 day alarm clock (1949)
- Oris Diver
- Chronoris (1970)
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Successful with watches for 1,500 to 5,000 francs. SRF, March 22, 2017, accessed on May 31, 2020 .
- ↑ Chronology of Hölstein. Retrieved May 7, 2019 .
- ↑ Gabrielle Schmidt-Ott: Georges Christian. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland . November 24, 2015 , accessed May 7, 2019 .
- ↑ Oris: 110 d'histoire et d'horlogerie indépendante. In: Montres de luxe. March 20, 2014, accessed May 7, 2019 (French).
- ↑ Oris: Making Time. Charming Time, February 19, 2018, accessed May 7, 2019 .
- ↑ Sarah Rieder: Oris: A Bach, his name and 100 years of tradition. In: Handelszeitung. November 18, 2004, accessed May 7, 2019 .
- ^ Johann Boillat: Clock Statute. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland . May 1, 2012 , accessed May 7, 2019 .
- ↑ Sarah Rieder: Oris: A Bach, his name and 100 years of tradition. In: handelszeitung.ch. November 18, 2004, accessed May 7, 2019 .
- ↑ Hans Galli: How the Swatch emerged from the race for the thinnest watch. In: tagesanzeiger.ch. October 24, 2015, accessed May 7, 2019 .
- ↑ The crisis in the watch industry. In: SRF my school. Retrieved May 7, 2019 .
- ↑ Oris: 110 d'histoire et d'horlogerie indépendante. In: Montres de luxe. Retrieved May 7, 2019 (French).
- ↑ Bruno Bohlhalter: Unruh - The Swiss watch industry and its crises in the 20th century . Zurich 2016.
- ^ Hélène Pasquier: Swatch Group. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland . January 23, 2018 , accessed May 7, 2019 .
- ↑ Jean-Philippe Arm: Affordable Quality from Roskopf to Oris. In: watch around no. 016, p. 21 f. Retrieved May 7, 2019 .
- ↑ Chronicle August 1981. In: Chronicle Canton Basel-Landschaft. Retrieved May 7, 2019 .
- ^ Chronicle February 1982. In: Chronicle Canton Basel-Landschaft. Retrieved May 7, 2019 .
- ↑ Chronology of Hölstein. Retrieved May 7, 2019 .
- ↑ Harald Fritschi: Clocks for four worlds. In: Balance. May 25, 2007, accessed May 7, 2019 .
- ↑ Ulrich W. Herzog: Success through innovation, discipline and taking risks. In: Business magazine. Retrieved May 7, 2019 .