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Renaud & Papi - Manufacturing After we managed to pry Jeff away from Giulio (the man did have work to do, after all !), we were then shown some of the machines that they use to make parts. I must admit I had no idea what the machines we saw made, since all they seemed to do was consume great lengths of metal wire, and then produce a large number of tiny, shapeless metal blobs.
From the sketch, to the computer to the finished piece ...
Every a minute or so this machine would spit out a tiny little part, i.e. a column wheel, with tolerances of 2-3/100 mm !
It's a Sony !
According to Giulio Papi the cost break-down for one of their movements is roughly 25 % for research & design, 25 % for manufacturing and a full 50 % for finishing and assembly. So it's not surprising that one of the largest departments of the company is responsible for finishing the manufactured parts. A lot of the work is done on these custom made finishing machines which practically cut the time required to finish a piece in half. Of course all the parts are guided by hand and the quality still very much depends on the skill of the person handling it.
Even using the above machines, finishing such a part to perfection can easily take two hours !
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