Jetcrown’s new Dongguan campus significantly boosts injection molding and tooling capacity. This mammoth, twin-head, diesink EDM unit will enable Jetcrown to fabricate large auto component tooling. Two-color molding is a forte at Jetcrown. Jetcrown’s S.Y. Tang heads up an initiative to expand tooling exports. Male technicians are generally charged with machine set-up . . . . . while females are the operators. Processing machinery includes Hong Kong-made presses for molding corded and cordless phone housings . . . . . . while all-electrics handle more challenging tasks. A doubling of design engineers is in the cards in the near future. Women are more dexterous than men, and more loyal, according to Jetcrown. A Sumitomo high-speed machine is one of the latest equipment additions. High-end Japanese machining centers give Jetcrown a quality edge. Tooling engineers have shop floor access to all relevant data.

We’ve heard and read a lot about Chinese injection molders in the last few years. If you’re of the opinion that it’s time to get to know the Asian competition a little better, IMM’s tour this month takes a good, hard look at a big, big molder in Guangdong who’s growing by leaps and bounds.

Chinese processor Jetcrown Industrial has made significant strides since its humble beginnings in 1989 in Shekou, Southern China. Back then, the company operated just 30 injection machines and a basic toolmaking shop—tiny by Mainland standards.

Fast-forward to 2005 and the firm is putting the finishing touches to a mammoth facility an hour or so away by expressway, located midway between the key Guangdong Province cities of Shenzhen and Dongguan. Director of marketing S.Y. Tang gave IMM the lowdown on where Jetcrown is headed during a visit to the new facility.

Growth in Phases

What hits us first is the very scale of things as we struggle to keep pace with our livewire guide amid sweltering heat on our walk through the campus. Phases I and II of the Dongguan project encompass 660,000 sq ft of manufacturing space and a further 350,000 sq ft of dormitory and amenity space (see “Providing Staff Accommodation and Opportunities,” p. 57). Investment here in plant construction and infrastructure, including backup generators to tide Jetcrown through Guangdong Province’s frequent summer brownouts, totals $25 million. Phase III, due for completion in December 2005, will add an additional 480,000 sq ft of office and manufacturing space and a 95,000-sq-ft dormitory at a cost of $10 million.

Previously, Jetcrown worked out of smaller rented premises in Dongguan. After transferring existing production equipment to the new facility, Jetcrown spent another $6.2 million filling out the new facility with additional processing, secondary process, and moldmaking equipment. This includes 102 Chen Hsong hydraulic machines (55 to 218 tons), nine Fanuc all-electrics (75 to 140 tons), and four Sumitomo high-speed presses (75 to 100 tons). It’s also spending $2 million on a fully automated coating line in its cleanroom.

But that’s not all. Phase III will see a further $10 million to $12 million in equipment investment, and it doesn’t end there. Phase IV is on the drawing board—two blocks of factory building and two more dormitories—and subject to the financial situation and future operating results at the firm. Jetcrown’s parent Deswell has no long-term debt and around $30 million in cash reserves.

It May Surprise You

While Jetcrown’s scale and pace of investment is not uncommon in China, its approach of establishing comprehensive processing capabilities is unique. For example, it has a stable of 18 Nissei and Po Yuen two-shot injection presses to mold such items as keypad buttons and phone housings. It also offers the option of laser engraving for buttons. Gas assist, meanwhile, is employed to mold printer and copy machine chassis, while its wide range of clamping force—40 to 1600 tons—can handle parts as diverse as tiny gears to large copy machine panels.

Key Jetcrown clients include Emerson, Epson, Inter-Tel, Kyocera Mita, Hong Kong corded and cordless phone maker VTech, and Japanese baby product manufacture Combi. Major products include chassis, housings, panels, and internal components for copy machines and printers, toner cartridges, audio housings, and telephone housings.

First-time visitors to a Chinese operation like Jetcrown might also be surprised by the demographic profile of employees. In contrast to Western processors and moldmakers, the majority of Jetcrown’s employees are of the fairer sex. In the injection molding division, women dominate by 19 to one as they are viewed as being more patient, dexterous, and less likely to job-hop.

Even in the tooling department, 50% of the staff is female. “Ninety-nine percent of our CNC, EDM, and grinder operators are female,” notes Tang. Why? “They simply work better than males as they feel they have to prove themselves,” he concludes.

Men do come to the fore, however, when it comes to grunt work such as CNC machine setup, tool assembly, and trial shoots.

The Push into Tooling

A recent strategic shift headed by Tang at Jetcrown’s tooling department is a focus in export molds. Previously, the company would only take on moldmaking work if it came as part of a component supply package. “Now, we are actively targeting the global tooling market,” says Tang.

As with other Asian-based toolmakers, Jetcrown says it can supply tools at significant savings in both cost and lead time, even when factoring in a four-week shipping time. Tooling for an automotive door trim part, for example, took 10 weeks from receipt of order to first shot, including mold design. In 2003, Jetcrown fabricated 600 mainly small tools; in 2004, output varied between 70 and 100 per month.

Jetcrown Industrial Ltd., Dongguan, Guangdong Province, China Square footage: 1.64 million (Dongguan, as of December 2004), 33,000 (Shekou) Annual sales: $53.1 million Markets served:Electronics, telecommunications, consumer, industrial, health care, automotive Customers: Combi, Emerson, Epson, Inter-Tel, Kyocera Mita, VTech, others Capital investment $113.5 million (including affiliate electronics company) Materials processed: ABS, HIPS, PA66, PC, PC/ABS, POM, PP, TPU Resin consumption:14.72 million lb No. of employees: 4900 Shifts worked: Two Molding machines: 356, 50 to 1600 tons; Chen Hsong, Fanuc, Kawaguchi, Mitsubishi, Nissei, Po Yuen, Sumitomo Molding technology: Gas assist, multimolding, insert molding, IMD, cleanroom Other services: CAD (Pro/E, full data exchange capabilities), CAM, flow analysis, testing Secondary operations: Painting, silk screen and pad printing, cleanroom coating, laser engraving, welding, subassembly, full assembly Internal moldmaking: Yes, about 1000/year Quality:ISO 9001, ISO 14001, TS 16949 (planned in 2005) *All stats for year ended March 2004 unless otherwise noted.

One key to expanding the contribution of tooling is the firm’s move to gain TS 16949 certification, which will allow it to better target the automotive sector. “The electrical and electronic sectors are highly competitive, so moving into the auto sector also makes sense in terms of the bottom line,” says Tang.

A recent significant capital investment made by Jetcrown to enable it to make larger molds is a twin-head EDM machine from Korea. “When fabricating large tools, the EDM step is a bottleneck and we plan to alleviate this with the new machine,” says Tang. The giant unit can accommodate a 17-tonne workpiece in a workspace of 3720 by 1040 mm; maximum electrode weight is 400 kg. “We can simultaneously machine a single workpiece at two locations, or two workpieces at once,” says Tang.

Jetcrown has also invested in five Yasda and Mori Seiki high-speed (20,000-rpm) machining centers that allow it to machine to very small dimensions without the need for EDM. The equipment can machine down to a precision of 4 µm.

Jetcrown has added a deep-hole drilling machine with a machining depth of 1500 mm and a hole diameter of 4 to 30 mm for forming cooling channels in large molds; a 320-ton mold-fitting (spotting) machine with a working table of 2500 by 1800 mm; and a Kuraki horizontal, high-speed CNC boring and milling machine with 3000-by-2000-by-1300-mm travel and working load of 12 tons.

Recent investment in moldmaking machinery, especially for large molds, is valued at close to $4 million. Overall, Jetcrown now has 38 EDMs (diesink and wire cut), 25 CNC milling machines, and 78 NC milling machines split between Shekou and Dongguan. The new equipment enables Jetcrown to make molds up to 30 tons, instead of the previous maximum of 10 tons.

“In Europe, moldmakers are unwilling to do overtime but here it’s not an issue,” says Tang. “There’s also a shortage of toolmakers in Europe, so it’s very difficult for a single shop to take on a turnkey job composed of multiple molds. You’d have to subcontract some work out, which complicates project management and adds to lead time.”

The scale of Jetcrown’s toolmaking operation, however, makes it easy to handle such projects under one roof. Language is also no longer an issue, according to Tang, since all the project engineers are fluent in English. Jetcrown can also leverage its extensive injection molding capabilities for qualifying tools and preproduction.

While the initial objective is to export tooling to Europe and North America, Tang believes that eventually some of his customers’ production will be transferred to China. “We will then be in a good position to service our clients locally,” he says. Tang believes that in coming years, China will become the world’s workshop for tooling as well as molding.

Providing staff accommodations and opportunities Part and parcel of running a processing operation in China is taking good care of employees. And that doesn’t just include paying them competitive wages—RMB1000 ($120) per month for a machine operator and RMB3000 to RMB5000 ($360 to $600) for a tooling engineer with several years of experience. Employers in China are expected to provide their workers with full board, three square meals a day, and amenities such as TV and Internet rooms, libraries, and sporting facilities for table tennis, badminton, basketball, and sometimes even soccer. The level of lodging depends on seniority. Management and supervisors enjoy their own rooms, while project engineers share; office workers bunk down four to a room, and five toolmakers share a single room. Senior staff members have their own refrigerators, TVs, washing machines, air conditioners, and bathrooms, while lower-level workers share. “Given the lack of public transport infrastructure and private accommodation in China, workers are very happy to live onsite in free accommodation,” says Tang. “Job satisfaction is very important in holding on to people, but providing good accommodation after a hard day’s work is also paramount.” Hong Kong native Tang and similar expats typically catch the 50-minute ferry back to their hometown on weekends. Tang says Chinese workers relish the opportunity to learn, and providing them with such chances is also a key component of job satisfaction and employee retention. “Engineers may start off in the diesink EDM division, then move on to wire cut, and then possibly even tool design. We actually encourage our staff to move around.” This might include assignment to the molding side to learn about plastic materials and molding parameters. The same goes for workers in Jetcrown’s molding business, who are encouraged to get into painting and welding processes.

Contact information Jetcrown Industrial Ltd. Dongguan, Guangdong Province, China +86 (769) 596 7251 sytang@jetcrown.com.cn www.deswell.com