trendmatter.com | mac oosthuizen

Recently I had the opportunity to visit a injection mould production factory located on the ourskirts of the up and coming “Whatever Hong Kong can do, we can do better” city, Shenzhen. Located just over the border into China’s Guangdong Province. A simple 30 minute train ride from Kowloon to the edge of Hong Kong and then a quick walk over the bridge from the heavily fortified Hong Kong side of the river (probably left over from British rule) to the less fortified but more built up Chinese side is all it takes to find yourself standing in a city that’s a stark contrast to Hong Kong. With emphasis on shopping, the city is a favourite among Hong Kong residents as a good place to shop for fake designer goods and apparently a hot spot for the art of Massage. The city is cheaper to live in and travel is cheap enough for people to commute, everyday, over the border to Hong Kong to work. In fact the side of immigration that lets you into China stays open until 11pm while immigration into Hong Kong only stays open till 7pm.

Once through immigration I was led by my colleague through a maze of lifts and corridors until we emerged out into a parking lot where a black Audi was waiting to take us to our destination. The driver dodged in and out of traffic, occasionally talking hastily on his mobile phone. Flanked by container trucks and taxi motorcycles we sped along the unmarked motorway, buildings getting lower and lower, wider and wider until we arrived in what looked like a warehouse/factory district, crisscrossed by dirt roads streaming with people. Small groups of people, each group dressed in a different outfit passed by with the driver using the horn like a musical instrument, trying to clear a path for the car. Soon we drove through a clean gate into the courtyard of medium sized building. My colleague signaled to me that it was time to get out. As I walked towards the entrance of the building I could see down the side of the building a small crane lifting huge steel die cast moulds into the back of a humble Ford pick up truck, the weight of each mould making the back of the truck sag until it more accurately resembled a ‘pimped out’ low rider.

We were led inside where we first obliged to attend a meeting where we would discuss the accuracy of the first mould compared to the approved model, made by a model maker. Read my post, Getting stuff done in China, for an accurate description of what it’s like to sit through such a meeting. Accuracy is paramount, cost is always on the brain. After the ‘brief’ meeting we were escorted on a tour of the factory where I was immediately shown a room full of very busy model makers. I stared at admiration through the glass, mesmerized by their speed. My escort, who was one of the heads of engineering at Mattel, leaned over, “All these guys need is a drawing of the product and a few dimensions and in a week you’ll have a fully working model”. Needless to say it was hard for me to continue walking, but soon we were heading downstairs to the first floor where I was greeted warmly by the familiar sound of heavy machines working at speeds exceeding maximum capacity and the sweet smell of coolant. Walking through the milling machines and spark erosion machines we stopped a young woman, probably not much older than myself, spark eroding a cavity for a new injection mould, having to do it bit by bit so as to not overheat the mould. “We could easily do this by just dunking the whole mould in coolant and putting it on auto, but it’s cheaper for us to hire someone to stand here and do it for us. The workmanship and chance of error is still lower”. I found this incredible, it’s still cheaper to employ someone to do a job that automated machines could do in a shorter time frame. “How long does she work?” I asked trying to evert my eyes from the sparks of the erosion. “Long” came back the answer. I left it at that.

We walked down to the ground floor where I was led into a room filled with computers, each one occupied with a head staring at a screen. “They find it a big honour to be asked to work on these computers” said my guide as he greeted two people who he obviously knew. A screen caught my eye, filled with a particularly complicated shape, it’s author tending a CAM machine on the other side of the glass. My guide saw me looking at the screen, “We could take these computers away from them at any time and they could still make that by hand by the end of the day” I took that as a slight exaggeration, it was getting obvious that he was enjoying impressing me. Still, walking around and observing everything going on, I couldn’t help but believe him. Here, right in front of my eyes, was a good example of why we should hope China never gets greedy.

Photography by: Micheal Wolf (first), Ed Burtynsky (second, third)