Elmar Mock

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Elmar Mock
Elmar Mock 2017.jpg
Born1954
NationalitySwiss
Occupationengineer
Known for SWATCH watch

Elmar Mock (born February 2, 1954, in La Chaux-de-Fonds) is a Swiss watch engineer with specialized knowledge in polymers, an industrial designer, and inventor.

Contents

Biography

Education

Elmar Mock graduated from the Technical School of Biel in 1976. He was hired by ETA Manufacture Horlogère (ETA SA). He completed a one-year training course in synthetic materials in Aargau, financed by his employer, on condition that he returned to work for two years at ETA SA. [1]

Personal life

Spouse(s): Mary-Claude Juillerat (m.1975-1997.) Children: Sébastien Mock, Vincent Mock, Stéphanie Corthay, and Réanne Mock. Hélène Kett (m.2003). Stepchildren: Charles-Henry, Anne-Sophie and Isabeau Dubey. Elmar resides with his wife in Altdorf, Uri, Switzerland and in Ballater, Aberdeenshire, Scotland.

Inventor and industrial designer

Elmar Mock is, with Jacques Müller, the co-inventor of the SWATCH watch, under the direction of Ernst Thomke, at the beginning of the 1980s, invention which revolutionized the Swiss watch industry, which at the time was seriously losing ground to the Japanese quartz watch competition – quartz watches which were low cost and reliable. Mock and Müller came up with the idea of using plastic materials to produce watches. [2] The classic Swiss watch required 91 parts - the SWATCH has only 51. [3] The movement is integrated in the watch-case; the watch strap is made of polyurethane; everything is assembled in one block; and the ultrasonic welding technique, developed by Mock, welds the PMMA (plexiglass) crystal to the watchcase, making it resistant and waterproof—but also irreparable. [4] In its first year 500,000 watches were sold for a price between 39.90 and 49.90 Swiss Francs, with a production cost of 5 Swiss Francs. As at 2018, more than 700 million SWATCH watches have been sold worldwide. [5] Mock then worked on the ROCKWATCH watch (for Tissot), which has the distinctive attribute of having a watchface made of granite from the Swiss Alps.

Mock then left watchmaking and founded his own engineering company in innovation/creativity and product development, called Createc in 1986, in Biel. This company later became Creaholic. As at 2018, the company employs 55 people. Swisscom holds a 5% stake in Creaholic. [6] Creaholic works on projects for the likes of IKEA, Leica, Lufthansa and BMW. [7] [8]

Mock is the co-inventor of more than 180 patent families in such diverse industries as watchmaking, automotive, food or pharmaceutical, and he is at the origin of 750 projects and 8 start-ups. He is considered a veteran of Swiss innovation. [9] In 2009, he entered the "Forum of 100 personalities who make up French-speaking Switzerland", drawn up every year by the Swiss monthly publication "l'Hebdo". [10] In 2017, he was a finalist from a pool of 400 candidates for the European Inventor of the Year Award in the category – Lifetime Achievement - awarded by the European Patent Office. [11] According to Benoît Battistelli, the president of the EPO, "Elmar Mock has always dared to challenge the status quo". [12] In 2019, he was appointed as one of the leading experts that judge proposals for this award. [13]

Prizes and awards

Bibliography

Translated into English and German

Documentary

Elmar Mock- Ingénieur, "serial inventeur". La légende Swatch. 2024 - Plans fixes [16]

Related Research Articles

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The Swatch Group Ltd is a Swiss manufacturer of watches and jewellery. The company was founded in 1983 through the merger of ASUAG and SSIH, moving to manufacturing quartz-crystal watches to resolve the quartz crisis threatening the traditional Swiss watchmaking industry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">IWC Schaffhausen</span> Luxury Swiss watch manufacturer

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tissot</span> Swiss watch manufacturer

TissotSA is a Swiss watch brand owned by the Swatch Group. The company was founded in Le Locle, Switzerland by Charles-Félicien Tissot and his son, Charles-Émile Tissot, in 1853.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Swatch</span> Swiss watchmaker

Swatch is a luxury Swiss watchmaker founded in 1983 by Ernst Thomke, Elmar Mock, and Jacques Müller. It is a subsidiary of The Swatch Group. The Swatch product line was developed as a response to the "quartz crisis" of the 1970s and 1980s, in which inexpensive, battery-powered, quartz-regulated watches were competing against more established European watchmakers focused on artisanal craftsmanship producing mostly mechanical watches.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ETA SA</span> Swiss watch company

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Manufacture d'horlogerie is a French language term of horology that has also been adopted in the English language as a loanword. In horology, the term is usually encountered in its abbreviated form manufacture. This term is used when describing a wrist watch movement or watchworks fabricator which makes all or most of the parts required for its products in its own production facilities, as opposed to simply assembling watches using parts purchased from other firms.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Quartz crisis</span> 1970s–80s watchmaking industry upheaval

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ernst Thomke</span> Swiss physician and watchmaker

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References

  1. "Actualité - L'ingénieur suisse Elmar Mock nominé pour le Prix de l'inventeur européen 2017". www.cominmag.ch (in French). 2017-04-26.
  2. "Elmar Mock, un visionnaire". Le Temps (in French). 2015-03-20. ISSN   1423-3967.
  3. "La Swatch rentable en deux ans". Gazette de Lausanne. 1984-02-24. p. 3.
  4. Smallman, Etan (2018-01-08). "How we made the Swatch". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077.
  5. Ackermann, Jürg (2017-04-26). "Ein Legastheniker auf der Überholspur". Luzerner Zeitung (in German).
  6. "Swisscom schliesst Partnerschaft mit Creaholic". www.netzwoche.ch (in German). 2017-03-08.
  7. "Rettungsring am Handgelenk". Bilanz. 2018-01-01. Archived from the original on 2018-01-02. Retrieved 2018-12-14.
  8. "Après avoir créé la Swatch, je suis devenu un serial inventeur". BFM BUSINESS (in French). 2017-06-06.
  9. "Leur mission? Faire jaillir les idées!". Bilan (in French). 2016-01-31.
  10. "Le Think Thank des romands" (PDF). labs.letemps.ch. Retrieved 2018-12-14.
  11. "Elmar Mock - the man with an innate sense of invention". House of Switzerland. 2017-07-05.
  12. Office, European Patent. "The entrepreneurial inventor: Elmar Mock named European Inventor Award 2017 finalist". www.epo.org. Retrieved 2018-12-14.
  13. Office, European Patent. "European Inventor Award: jury members". www.epo.org. Retrieved 2019-01-21.
  14. "Les pères de la Swatch à l'honneur". www.journaldujura.ch (in French). 2010-09-28.
  15. Office, European Patent (2017). "Elmar Mock (Switzerland)". www.epo.org. Retrieved 2018-12-14.
  16. "Elmar Mock: «Les Suisses oublient que la Swatch est un produit d'immigré» - Le Temps" (in French). 2024-10-22. ISSN   1423-3967 . Retrieved 2024-10-25.