There are two types of jewelry manufacturing: mass market and custom. In both cases the manufacturing of jewelry requires the development of a very detailed set of instructions for jewelry making. The process typically starts with a craftsman developing the prototype jewelry piece. Then the ring, necklace, bracelet or other trinket must be approved both from a beauty and sales standpoint and an assessment made of its manufacturability. It is after this point where the process changes drastically.
Mass-Market Jewelry Making
Throughout the world we now see jewelry selling for less and less as the jewelry making instructions improve and millions of the articles are mass produced. Houston is now one of the centers of commercial wholesale jewelry. In Houston you can find stores where there are literally hundreds of the same items of jewelry in a given stand on the wall.
Most of these items are not made of precious metals or stones but are pressed out of chrome-based metals with rhinestones or other glass placed into the setting by a machine. Thus, instructions for jewelry making in such an environment must include details at such a level of granularity, that a programmer can develop machine instructions to make the jewelry.
Custom Jewelry Making
For custom jewelry, the instructions for making jewelry may be nothing more than the jeweler’s notes listing the materials they used in constructing the jewelry, a diagram of the setting or positioning of the gem stones and the size or amount of the material. For instance, the jewelry making instructions for a gold chain with a custom design would include the number of ounces of gold used, the length of the chain, the type of clasp and most importantly, the custom extrusion design.
With this information one would expect that a replica or replacement could be made quite easily. In fact the test of good jewelry making instructions will be whether or not it has sufficient detail to accomplish making this replica in a timely manner.
Maintaining Records
Whether the instructions for making jewelry are for custom or mass-market pieces, it is essential that the original manufacturer maintain the information securely. Should the instructions for a custom piece of jewelry be misplaced and found at a different jeweler, the original purchaser would have every right to be upset. Should a specific set of jewelry making instructions be for a popular mass-market piece, then many millions of dollars could be lost in opportunity costs alone, as some other manufacturer captures their market share.