The fast-growing company employs more than 200 engineers and 220 highly specialised toolmakers, who have 129 of their own CNC machines and 17 different presses up to a load of 2,000 tonnes at their disposal. The company's main foreign markets are in Europe and North America.

* Henrik Bork is Managing Director at Asia Waypoint, a Beijing-based consulting agency specialising in China. "China Market Insider" is a joint project of the Vogel Communications Group, Würzburg, and Jigong Vogel Media Advertising in Beijing.

This large Chinese manufacturer of tools and plastic and injection moulds started in 1997 as a three-man operation with the company name Changhua Wire-Cutting Processing Shop, but has since experienced a growth story that is probably unique in the industry.

Tool and mould making in China is benefiting from the positive development of its customer industries. Here we provide an overview of the most important players in the market.

This giant among the Chinese state-owned companies in the tool and machine building sector is a wholly owned subsidiary of the FAW Group. The FAW Group is known in Germany as one of Volkswagen's joint venture partners in China. The company has been around for more than 70 years, but was last restructured and renamed in 1997.

The beginnings of this tool and mould maker in Shenzhen, southern China, whose factory halls look just as sparkling clean and ultra-modern as those of any competitor in Germany or Japan, date back to 1993. That was when Hu Zuohan, a graduate of Beijing's prestigious Qinghua University, and his partner Ryan Huang founded the Shenzhen Brother Mold Factory.

Naturally, we always handle your personal data responsibly. Any personal data we receive from you is processed in accordance with applicable data protection legislation. For detailed information please see our privacy policy.

The mid-century machines remain popular to this day. According to the current owner, one in 10 people who pass a machine buy a model, and the company uses about 640 55-pound bags of plastic pellets a year. Each Mold-A-Rama machine hold a gallon of hot liquid plastic and can produce up to 150 figures a day.

In recent years, the Chinese government has published a number of strategy papers and set in motion support programmes to promote toolmaking and mechanical engineering. At the same time, the titles of these papers and programmes reveal that the aim is still to catch up with the technologically superior foreign competition.

Alexis Gajewski has over 15 years of experience in the maintenance, reliability, operations, and manufacturing space. She joined Plant Services in 2008 and works to bring readers the news, insight, and information they need to make the right decisions for their plants. Alexis also authors “The Lighter Side of Manufacturing,” a blog that highlights the fun and innovative advances in the industrial sector.

Below we present six of the currently most successful of these emerging "national champions" in China's tool and mould industry.

At the same time, however, with the active help of the government, a number of "national champions" are emerging in this industry in China. With their high degree of automation, IT technologies such as CAD, CAE or CAM and 3D design tools, and equipped with a lot of money from IPOs, they are now very close to Western companies in terms of quality and precision in manufacturing.

The company's origins in tool and mould making date back to 1958, the first decade of the People's Republic proclaimed by Mao Zedong on Tiananmen Square on 1 October 1949. From the beginning, then called "State Owned Factory No. 132", Chengfei Group specialised in the construction of military and civil aircraft.

This portal is a brand of Vogel Communications Group. You will find our complete range of products and services on www.vogel.com

There are also similarities to Europe in the tool and product categories. The three most important fields of tool and mould making in China are:

Today, TQM supplies customers in China and worldwide. An important focus here is also the automotive industry. Tools for the production of inner and outer skin parts of car bodies and complete equipment groups and processes are offered.

Specialising in tools for the electronics industry, just six years later CHT's more than 2,000 employees were supplying internationally renowned customers such as Konica Minolta Inc, Brother Industries, Thermo Fisher and the Chinese mobile phone and electronics giant Xiaomi.

The tool and mould industry in China had suffered greatly from the Corona measures imposed by Beijing in recent years. In 2020, the first of the three pandemic years, the total value of the industry in the People's Republic had fallen by around 34.5 billion euros, which corresponded to a decline of 11.3 percent compared to the previous year.

In case I access protected data on Internet portals of Vogel Communications Group including any affiliated companies according to §§ 15 et seq. AktG, I need to provide further data in order to register for the access to such content. In return for this free access to editorial content, my data may be used in accordance with this consent for the purposes stated here.

In 2003, CHT won the "Shenzhen High-Tech Enterprise Award", in 2009 the "National High-Tech Award" of the People's Republic of China. A complete product line for medical consumables, offered by a subsidiary in Hong Kong, is also part of the toolmaker's range.

Imprint Cookie-Manager About Media Subscription cancellation Privacy General Terms and Conditions Help AI-Guidelines

FAW Tooling's customers from the automotive industry include more than ten renowned manufacturers from Germany and abroad, including

I understand that I can revoke my consent at will. My revocation does not change the lawfulness of data processing that was conducted based on my consent leading up to my revocation. One option to declare my revocation is to use the contact form found at https://contact.vogel.de. In case I no longer wish to receive certain newsletters, I have subscribed to, I can also click on the unsubscribe link included at the end of a newsletter. Further information regarding my right of revocation and the implementation of it as well as the consequences of my revocation can be found in the data protection declaration, section editorial newsletter.

I hereby consent to Vogel Communications Group GmbH & Co. KG, Max-Planck-Str. 7/9, 97082 Würzburg, Germany, including any affiliated companies according to §§ 15 et seq. AktG (hereafter: Vogel Communications Group) using my e-mail address to send editorial newsletters. A list of all affiliated companies can be found here

Here's how it works. First, insert your money into the machine. (Back in my day, each statue cost $1. The current price per figurine is $5. Thanks, inflation.) Next, two thick aluminum plates are pushed together, creating the mold. Polyethylene pellets, heated up to approximately 250°F, are then injected into the mold, while a blast of air works to hollow out the piece. Unnecessary plastic is removed through a drainage hole in the bottom of the mold. The statue is then cooled and hardened before the plates pull apart and the piece is pushed into the pick-up box.

What happens when you combine a vending machine with plastic injection molding and add in a pinch of mid-century flair? You get a Mold-A-Rama machine. If you’re not a Midwesterner, then you might not know what I am talking about. But for those of us who grew up in Illinois, Minnesota, Michigan, or Wisconsin, Mold-A-Rama holds a special place in our nostalgic hearts. Every time I went to the Brookfield Zoo or the Field Museum of Natural History, I would drag my parents to the closest machine and beg them to buy me a tiny plastic statue. The real magic, however, was in watching the figurine being created right in front of our eyes in less than one minute. This became many kids’ first introduction to manufacturing.

Chengfei Integration now combines, after a series of restructurings, not only the mould making equipment of Chengfei Group, but also many machines and technologies of carmaker Geely, as well as R&D centres and talents from Nanjng University of Aeronautics and Northwestern Polytechnical University.

This emerging Chinese company builds stamping and forming tools for the automotive industry. These are in turn used to produce chassis, seats, roofs and other vehicle body parts.

Now a painstaking recovery has begun, but it is not progressing nearly as fast as many had hoped. In this respect, the companies in China are not much different from the European industries in this segment.

The group itself is again divided into a number of subsidiary companies and spread over several locations in China. It dominates various sectors of the market with its offshoots FAW Mold Tianjin, FAW Mold Qingdao or Huaxiang Lightweight Technology Co., Ltd. among others, with state-of-the-art equipment and production methods.

In addition to tools and moulds for building cars (including Toyota, Volvo, Geely and Lotus) and lithium batteries, it also produces those for energy storage and CNC machine parts.

Listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange since 2010, CHT supplies customers in China, Germany, the USA, Japan, England, Brazil, Switzerland and many other countries around the world.

Newsletter content may include all products and services of any companies mentioned above, including for example specialist journals and books, events and fairs as well as event-related products and services, print and digital media offers and services such as additional (editorial) newsletters, raffles, lead campaigns, market research both online and offline, specialist webportals and e-learning offers. In case my personal telephone number has also been collected, it may be used for offers of aforementioned products, for services of the companies mentioned above, and market research purposes.

At the end of last year, the Qichacha database already counted 221,141 Chinese companies active in tool and mould making. The vast majority of these, however, are smaller companies with only a few hundred employees, which are only active in the lower to medium price segment of products and are by no means eligible for orders in the premium sector, for example in the automotive industry.

According to its own information, the company is now the "number 1 tool exporter in China", although it is left open whether this is a question of the quality or quantity of exports. What is certain, however, is that Vision Tool & Mould has developed an impressive product range. It ranges from hot and cold forming tools to welding fixtures of all kinds to tandem and compound injection moulds.

The largest private company in the Chinese tool and mould industry has only existed under this specific name since 1996, but the company already has a history of more than 40 years under other names and in other constellations.

Fully automated milling lines, foreign professionals such as the German manager Marcus Schlundt as division manager, an IPO in Shenzhen in 2015, and ever more investments in state-of-the-art machines and software solutions have ensured that Silver Basis now exports a large part of its products abroad, especially moulds for the automotive industry.

A current example of this is the new "Action Plan for the Further Improvement of Product, Engineering and Service Quality in the Moulding Industry (2022 - 2025)". Where something needs to be "improved" with such calls from the central planners in Beijing, there is still a lot of work to be done.

A series of investments, restructuring, as well as a strategic partnership with the NGK Group from Japan have turned it into one of China's leading competitors in tool and mould making to this day.

If you’re looking to experience the magic of a Mold-A-Rama (or its cousin, the Mold-A-Matic) for yourself, here is a list of 10 locations where you can see these marvelous machines in action. If you happen to be in the Chicagoland area, take a trip to the Museum of Science and Industry and check out their latest exhibit, Mold-A-Rama: Molded for the Future.

The use of virtual twins with the aid of CAE simulations is just as much a part of the offering here as advanced cold stamping tools for steel or aluminium, thermoforming and complete tryout and "one-stop" production solutions for customers from the automotive industry and other areas of the manufacturing industry.

By clicking on „Subscribe to Newsletter“ I agree to the processing and use of my data according to the consent form (please expand for details) and accept the Terms of Use. For more information, please see our Privacy Policy.

One of the 33 subsidiaries, Shenyang TQM Aviation Parts Co., Ltd. is significantly involved in the construction of the first airliner C919 manufactured in China and researches, develops, produces and assembles components for all kinds of aircraft.

Unlike in Europe, however, business is now developing very positively in several downstream industries of tool and mould making in China, especially in the areas of e-mobility, energy storage and car batteries as well as in the communications industry. So the outlook has brightened again for the "mother of all industries" in China, without which, as we know, nothing works. At least not in the manufacturing industry.

Chengfei Integration had emerged in 2014 from a subsidiary of AVIC, i.e. the Aviation Industry Corporation of China, a state-owned aerospace conglomerate.

The Mold-A-Rama machine was invented by J.H. “Tike” Miller and debuted at the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair. The initial batch of models included a monorail, a Buddha, and a 3D sculpture of the Fair’s logo. The 1964 World’s Fair in New York City, however, made Mold-A-Rama a household name. It is said that as many as 150 machines were installed over the Fair’s two-year timeframe, and models included various dinosaurs, Disney characters, animals, and presidential busts. After being featured at the Montreal World’s Fair, Expo ’67, Mold-A-Rama machines became staples at museums, zoos, amusement parks, and anywhere that sold souvenirs.