Founded in 2005 by Andreas Strehler and controlled by the Strehler family, UhrTeil AG is the only micromechanical construction and production facility in the eastern part of Switzerland, i.e. outside the traditional watchmaking belt along the Jura Mountains.
UhrTeil AG provides the engineering and production facilities for Andreas Strehler and for his customers. Under the umbrella of UhrTeil AG, Andreas Strehler develops complications and complete movements for the watch industry.
UhrTeil AG covers the whole spectrum of designing and building a movement: From the first idea to the feasibility study, the final construction of the movement, the building of prototypes, the costing and the industrialisation of the production of movements to the production of components and entire movements.
Among the portfolio are two specialities not fund easily elsewhere is the design of escapements and the production of high-quality escapement parts and of ball bearings. Besides UhrTeil AG, there are only two other independent manufacturers micro ball bearings.
Ball bearings are for example used in watchmaking for the rotors of the automatic winding system and for tourbillons. They consist of four components and at least five balls. The difficulty of producing micro-ball bearing lies in achieving a consistent precision, i.e. minimal play of all the components and thus minimal friction. The particular know-how required to achieve this in the field of micromechanics is limited to only a few engineers. Andreas Strehler is one of them.
UhrTeil AG not only produces plans, the customer can also order complete kits to be assembled at the customer’s own facilities while the final assembly can also be done by UhrTeil AG
A customer can thus start with whole movements built by UhrTeil AG and successively take over their production. For example, a new watch manufacturer has used these capabilities of UhrTeil AG in order to gain time to set up its own production facilities.
This integrated approach differentiates UhrTeil AG from many other design offices and has several advantages: Improvements which only become evident during production are immediately fed back to the design office. The same applies to production methods: Often small changes make the serial production of a movement more efficient. Thanks to the unique setup of UhrTeil AG, such changes to the construction and the plans can be made immediately.
Besides its competences in the field of watch movement technology, UhrTeil AG has a great experience for the production of other micromechanical components for a diverse field of applications. In watch movement engineering and productions, the highest precision is indispensable. The acceptable tolerances are up to +/– 3 micron (3/1’000 mm). This experience is used by customers for the production of complex mechanisms. UhrTeil AG can produce components automatically and efficiently both in small numbers as well as in larger series.
The production facilities include modern CNC-machines. At present, UhrTeil AG has three machining centres for milled components, three wire eroding machines and one seven-axis straight turning machine (Decolletage). A particular strength of UhrTeil AG lies in its capability to combine several production steps on different machines. This allows the efficient production of particularly complex components.
A further strength of UhrTeil AG is the ability to write dedicated software to optimise the processes on the CNC machining. This gives it great flexibility and the ability to react quickly to customers’ needs.
Unique Pieces
It is also through UhrTeil AG that Andreas Strehler has made the dream of watch collectors come true: One’s own watch. While most watch brands will individualise watches, this is normally limited to engravings on the back and perhaps a special dial. Andreas Strehler goes much further: A watch collector is treated like any customer from the industry and practically anything is possible. A completely new movement with new functions can be designed and manufactured within a relatively short time. While this certainly does not come cheap, the budget is much more manageable than one would think. From the start of the project, UhrTeil AG applies industry standards including costing calculations and provisions for spare parts, making the manufacturing process predictable. The final watch is a unique handmade piece but with the quality and reliability of a watch fit for industrial production and thus for everyday use
