5,000 m², ten lines, and everything done on site
The point of an in-house process chain is not scale. It is that when a part is wrong, there is no supplier to phone and no blame to allocate — someone walks over to the machine and fixes it.
The point of an in-house process chain is not scale. It is that when a part is wrong, there is no supplier to phone and no blame to allocate — someone walks over to the machine and fixes it.
The plant is in Bao'an District, Shenzhen, in a building we own rather than rent. That matters more than it sounds: rented workshop space changes every few years, and equipment that has to be moved and re-levelled loses tolerance.
5,000 m² is split into sheet storage, cutting, machining, forming, finishing, assembly and packing. Ten production lines run in parallel, which is what allows a 3–7 business day sample turnaround to coexist with a container order without one displacing the other.
Sheet stock is held in a dedicated area with vertical racking, because cast acrylic stored flat under its own weight over months will bow. Thick sheet is stored on edge.
Eleven machine types, matched to the eleven process steps. Nothing on this list is subcontracted.
| Machine | What it does | Process step |
|---|---|---|
| CNC panel saw | Straight cutting to drawing, thickness and size control | Sheet preparation |
| CNC router (3-axis) | Shaped outlines, hole patterns, pockets, precision parts | Machining |
| CNC router (5-axis) | Complex curved surfaces, undercut profiles, precision curved parts | Machining |
| High-power laser cutter | Intricate outlines, fine detail, batch cutting of thin sheet | Cutting |
| Large acrylic heat bender | Thick-sheet curves, U-profiles, large architectural bends | Forming |
| CNC press brake | Straight folds and angle parts in thinner sheet | Forming |
| Diamond double-side polisher | Mirror edge finish, clear and scratch-free | Polishing |
| Flame polisher | Fast bright edge, removes machining marks on straight sections | Polishing |
| UV flatbed printer | Full-colour graphics, gradients, white ink on clear or coloured sheet | Printing |
| Screen printer | Solid colour, fine text, durable layer on flat faces | Printing |
| Laser marking machine | Serial numbers, fine text, permanent marks | Marking |
| Precision drilling machine | Assembly holes, locating holes, countersinks | Machining |
Order size decides scheduling, and the schedule is quoted, not estimated after the fact.
| Order type | Standard lead time | Sample |
|---|---|---|
| Sample order | 3–7 business days | 3–7 business days |
| Small batch | 7–10 business days | Included in lead time |
| Medium batch | 10–15 business days | Included in lead time |
| Large batch | 15–25 business days | Agreed separately |
| Rush | Compressed 20–50% | 15–50% surcharge, stock permitting |
Rush orders depend on sheet stock being available and the process not being a bottleneck that week. We will confirm or refuse on the day rather than accept and disappoint.
The plant is 25 minutes by car from Shenzhen Bao'an International Airport (SZX). Factory visits are welcome with a day's notice, and a video walkthrough can usually be arranged the same week.
If you come in person we will show you the machines running, the sheet stock, a part mid-process and the inspection records. If you are auditing, tell us the framework in advance so we can have the documentation ready — and so we can say in advance if we do not meet a standard you need.
On the floor
Taken on a normal working day, not staged for a brochure. Every shot below is a station your order passes through.
Sign-in, plant tour and drawing review happen on the same visit. The meeting table is a 20 mm cast acrylic part we made.
Straight cuts to drawing, with thickness, size and batch recorded against the job.
Shaped outlines and hole patterns, held to ±0.1 mm on routed features.
Sheet softened in the oven and cooled on a forming jig, so angle and radius repeat across a batch.
Direct-to-sheet printing in the same building as cutting, so a colour proof and the run use one setup.
No tool marks and no haze, so light boxes and display parts read the same edge to edge.
Aligned, solvent-bonded, clamped and left to cure. Each unit is then wiped and checked before it goes near a carton.
Corner-protected and marked fragile. The packed order is filmed before it leaves.
Capacity questions usually arrive as "how many can you make", which is not answerable without a part. A more useful framing is: what is the throughput of each process, and which one becomes the bottleneck on your job.
Cutting and CNC routing are the fast operations — a panel outline plus a dozen holes is minutes, not hours. Annealing is slow but batched, so it adds a fixed two to four hours per cycle rather than per part. Hand polishing is the operation that scales with area and with finish spec, and on a diamond-polished 20 mm edge it is where the hours go. Bonding is slow for the first piece on a new jig and fast afterwards.
| Operation | Scales with | Where it becomes the bottleneck |
|---|---|---|
| Cutting, CNC routing | Outline length, hole count | Rarely — this is the fastest stage |
| Laser cutting | Cut length, thickness | Thick sheet above 10 mm; edge quality on acrylic |
| Annealing | Oven volume, cycle time | A large order of thick bent parts queues here |
| Heat bending | Bend length, thickness, jig count | A multi-bend piece on one jig |
| Polishing | Edge length, finish spec | Diamond polish on long edges — most common constraint |
| Printing | Area, colour count, cure time | Multi-colour screen print with a drying cycle |
| Bonding | Joint length, cure time | New jig on the first order; fast on a repeat |
In order of how often we see it: a drawing that arrives in pieces and gets revised after cutting starts; a sheet grade that has to be ordered in; a hardware item on back order; and a finishing spec that changes after the first article. None of those are production problems, and all of them cost more days than a busy machine does.
The most useful thing a buyer can do is send the full pack at once — drawing, finish spec, quantity, delivery date, and any compliance document. An enquiry with all five gets a price and a date in one reply; an enquiry missing two gets a question, and a question is a day.
A video walkthrough costs you nothing and answers most of the questions a brochure cannot. We will show the machines, the stock and a part in progress.