At the mortals' party, we had a Q&A session with Markus.
Pardon me for the brevity and potentially lots of errors, as I did not take notes while Markus was answering our questions. Nonetheless, let me paraphrase some of the Q&A's down below for those who are interested:
Q: Among all of IWC's movements, which one do you (Markus) like best?
A: I love them all (pointing at the movements in display at the boutique).
I was involved in the development/assembly of all of these. I love them
all. If you must ask me to pick only 1, I will pick the monopusher.
(photo of a Portofino Monopusher, borrowed from the internet):
Q: speaking of the mono-pusher, I heard IWC had some quality issues with it when it was first released. It was later delayed in release, and not until customers have waited for a long time did IWC finally re-released it again. On the contrary, the movement of the Portofino Dual-Time seemed to be pulled out from the market, and had never been seen thereafter. What kind of QA criteria do you use to determine when to release a movement despite all difficulties, and when not to?
A: IWC has rigorous QA and testing/development procedures. If a movement is not ready for market, we may choose to take steps back if necessary, so to avoid releasing unstable/pre-matured products.
Q: Besides Kurt Klaus, who were the master watch-makers that you admired and learned from?
A: Dr. Ludwig Oeschslin who used to work for Ulysse Nardin. He was also the director the Musée International d’Horlogerie till 2014. Also, Paul Gerber, who was involved in the design of the alarm movement for
Fortis watches.
Q: Whatever happened to the IWC Connect?
A: (Markus expressed that he was not fond of the Connect either. He said ultimately IWC would release the products that its customers like--obviously Connect was not one of them)
Q: Do you need to reinforce/strengthen the components of the Unitas movement in order to drive the rotating turbine?
A: No. (then he went on explaining the light metal used for constructing the turbine, and how the whole system worked).
Q: Does having to rotate the turbine reduce the power-reserve of the 5003?
A: no
Q: other manufacturers, such as Rolex and Omega, already came up with a-magnetic materials to make hair-spring and escapements, thereby creating a-magnetic watches without the use of a Faraday's cage. Does IWC have such a plan?
A: IWC is always innvoating. Unfortunately, brands like Rolex already put a patent on silicon hairspring, so IWC cannot reproduce those. IWC, however, are experimenting with different ways to overcome magnetism. For now though, soft-iron cage still seems to be the most effective solution for IWC.
Q: Many brands are producing ultra-thin movements. IWC, on the other hand, seems to be producing large and modular in-house movements--perhaps due to easy-to-service, increased reliability and potential for adding complications? Do you see IWC ever releasing a thin movement, so that dressier watches like the Portugiesers and Portofino could benefit from having this?
A: It is difficult to control quality, accuracy and reliability of thin-movements. Many may find escapements accidentally pop out, or oil leakages. While I should never say never, but currently IWC does not have an immediate plan to release thin-movements.
Q: Ever get into a situation where the movement-designers and the marketing people/case-dial designers see things differently and start arguing?
A: haha. All the time. For instance, the dial designer may want the movement to drive the largest possible hands as possible to make the watch looks good. Sometimes, the movement is just not designed for that kind of operations. The way we resolve it is to collaborate, put out some prototypes for extensive testings, and then revise the designs and produce the final products when they become mature.
Q: how do you see ETA vs. in-house movements?
A: ETA movements have already been used for over 30 years. They have proven to be extremely reliable and accurate. However, in-house movements do have other benefits. higher-selling price is one of them. Allows the keeping of certain "DNA" is also another. For instance, you cannot put a Pellaton winding system onto an ETA. The ETA just wasn't designed for that. With an in-house movement, it could be designed from ground-up to have the Pellaton-winding system in place.
Q: When IWC purchased ETA's movements, what kinds of modification does IWC actually make on these ETA's movements?
A: We do different things. For instance, the 79350 in the Portugieser Chrono (3714) will be completely taken apart by IWC. Some components will be thrown away and replaced by modules that were made in-house by IWC. Afterwards, the movements with the new components will be reassembled for calibration and testing.
Q: In order to be a successful watch-maker, what type of characteristics do you think a person should possess?
A: quiet, patient, attend to details. Most importantly, one has to be passionate about what he does.
(Once again, I apologize for any misrepresentation or omission).
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