HLH Prototypes

HLH Prototypes is a prototype and low-volume parts maker with an office in Shajing, Bao'an, and a 12,000 m² plant in Dalingshan, Dongguan. It calls itself "a unique fusion of the West and East", and that's the quickest way to understand it: a Chinese industry veteran and a British partner built it, and a lot of its customers are in Europe and North America.

HLH started making parts in 2008, when CEO Vader Yu teamed up with the UK's James Murphy with the goal of becoming the fastest, most dependable shop around. Yu is the majority owner. Murphy, now vice GM, works closely with the project managers and has shaped a culture that mixes Western standards with Chinese business practice. A sister company, HLH Rapid, is registered in Leeds, and there's a sales lead in Michigan. More than 3,000 companies in 50 countries have used them.

The Dalingshan factory has six zones. Zone one is rapid tooling and injection molding, then CNC milling of metals, sheet metal, plastics machining with finishing and assembly, and 3D printing (SLA, SLS, DMLS metal) with vacuum casting. The sixth is engineering and project management. They also do carbon-fibre parts, aluminium forging, die casting and export tooling. The case studies are good fun. They made parts for Smartflyer's hybrid-electric aircraft and turned round 23 rapid tools and 200 part sets in ten weeks. They machined a robot of 70-plus parts in two weeks, vacuum-cast car side mirrors and die-cast housings for Praesidium's RemWave vital-signs monitor. "We needed a partner which could deliver parts within a couple of days," Smartflyer's team said.

You work with English-speaking project managers, and the phone line has an English extension. Quotes come as a free project review, usually within 24 hours for prototypes. Customers include the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Kombo Audio and Aliform Surgical. HLH lists ISO 9001, 14001, 13485 and 27001 plus IATF 16949, the automotive quality standard.

HLH is a good match for engineering teams in aerospace, automotive, robotics, medical and consumer electronics that need fast, mixed-process prototypes and bridge runs of tens to thousands of parts from one supplier. For simple commodity parts at mass-production volumes, a specialist factory will usually be cheaper.