The second reason is that they are generally less precise, and less likely to produce reliable watches, than automation. This isn’t to say that there isn’t some hand work involved – setting watch hands is often done manually or semi-manually, and there are other assembly processes, even in very large series production, that are done by humans, not robots. But for practical reasons, the watch industry has, in fact, moved as quickly away from making things by hand as possible. The enormous American watch factories run by companies like Waltham and Elgin, which produced watches by the millions, were by the late 19th century, miracles of industrialization, not craft, and European makers followed suit as quickly as they could.