Chronology

  • 2012

    Building acquisition Rue de la Blancherie 9, Delémont

  • 2002

    SCHAUBLIN SA acquires RBC France

  • 2000

    SCHAUBLIN SA becomes a wholly owned subsidiary of RBC BEARINGS

  • 1991

    Moved to the new site

  • 1971/72

    Last expansion of the Bévilard factory (the eighth since 1930) with new air conditioned assembly and surface application shops

  • 1969/70

    A new air conditioned factory built at Delémont, a few hundred metres from the original one

  • 1956

    Acquisition of the Tramelan plant, by the takeover of AOMP. Conversion of the former station plant at Malleray-Bévilard into a Schaublin Foyer and production of spherical bearings under Unibal® licence (Delémont)

  • 1953/54

    A new plant was built at Orvin in the aim of creating a local industry intended to slow the flow of young people to the towns

  • 1946

    Company converted into a joint stock company, under the title "Fabrique de machines SCHAUBLIN SA" (Schaublin Limited Machine manufacturing), and the Bévilard plant was again expanded

  • 1941

    The Bévilard plant extended

  • 1940

    The Delémont plant extended

  • 1929/1930

    Construction of the Bévilard plant, which became the headquarters

  • 1924

    First branch opened in Delémont, to continue manufacturing collets which began in 1920 at Malleray. In the beginning, the Delémont factory employed 18 people. Subsequently, it grew in two stages, in 1940 and in 1957/58

  • 1915

    Schaublin was founded in Malleray by Charles Schäublin - to manufacture lathes for the watch-making industry

A hundred years

April 1915. A train steams up the Tavannes valley. On board, a young soldier who, taking advantage of leave, was on his way home to Tramelan. He was 32, his one love was engineering, and his one goal was to start his own business.

His name was Charles Schäublin. Born in 1883, in Waldenburg (BL), he had already served his apprenticeship as a fitter (gaining first prize in his final exam). Then, just like the journeymen who travelled the country, he undertook what could be called an "Engineering tour of the region". He wentCharles Schaublin to Schild at Granges, to Tavannes Watch, to Omega at Bienne, then back to Granges with Lambert, and lastly to Tramelan, where he took up with the Burri brothers. At the time we are looking at, he had just left his associates, having made up his mind to go it alone.

The train taking our soldier on leave stopped at Malleray station. It was just a little farming village, like its neighbours, but already had the first seeds of industry, watch and clock-making, in particular. And the carriage Charles Schäublin was in stopped right opposite a small factory that was vacant because it had gone bankrupt. The future industrialist did not hesitate, that was where he would set up. The following day, he went back to Malleray and on 8 April 1915 he exchanged contracts to buy. It was the beginning of an adventure which has now lasted for almost 100 years.

Charles Schäublin was in stopped right opposite a small factory that was vacant [...]. It was the beginning of an adventure

You can bet that, at the time, the people of Malleray, or their neighbours in the very modest village of Bévilard, never expected that their district would prosper so and that just a few years on, the Company that had been founded would have a world-wide reputation. The modest original workshop, with its typical transmission shafts and belts in all directions, lack of light, black machines with convoluted shapes, has given way to the present Company, known by one and all.

Starting out was not easy, with the world war, enormous problems getting machinery and raw materials or training staff.

Then came the serious crises of the twenties and thirties, the development of new machines and creation of new factories.

For all this work, Charles Schäublin was to be assisted, from 1916, by his brother-in-law, Emile Villeneuve. Born in 1890 in Corgémont, he was then a junior master and taught at Tavannes. He worked on the Company's financial and commercial organisation, whereas Charles Schäublin focused his energies on construction and industrial manufacturing.


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