Industrialman工业人

Industrialman (工业人) is one of Shenzhen's veteran model shops. It started with craftsmen shaping prototypes by hand and grew into a multi-plant operation that now builds full-size show cars. The HQ is in Xinqiao, Bao'an. The main factory is in Humen, Dongguan, with a second plant in Huangshi, Hubei, and a third in New Delhi, India, more than 50,000 m² in all.

The founder got into model-making in 1996. An 工业人 design company followed in 1998, and the current Shenzhen Industrialman Rapid Prototyping Technology company was registered in 2001, the same year it bought imported 3D printers. They describe the journey as going from "a pure handcraft workshop" to automated manufacturing. The milestones would please any car-show regular. Huawei named it best model partner in 2006, and Honda took it on as a model supplier in 2007. In 2008 it built a 1:1 transport-aircraft model for China's aviation industry corporation, and in 2014 Volkswagen in Germany approved it as a supplier. Nine of the display vehicles at the 2017 Shanghai auto show came out of its shops.

The menu covers CNC machining, 3D printing, silicone vacuum casting, sheet metal, and rapid steel and aluminium molds with injection molding. Then there's the automotive work. Stamped white-body (bare car body) prototypes bring in over 100 million yuan a year. There's heavy-truck stamping too, and hand-finished display car models made with Japanese experts. The team is 80-plus design engineers and 200-plus technical staff, with around 200 CNC machining centres and 80 3D printers among 300-plus machines.

For quick jobs there's a Chinese-language online quote tool. It takes STEP, STL, IGES and other files up to 100 MB and prices 3D printing, CNC, casting, sheet metal and rapid molds. Overseas enquiries go through the export site, industryprotomold.com, where English-speaking project managers pick them up.

Industrialman is a good fit for automotive and industrial teams that need big or unusual prototypes: stamped body panels, show-car models, large machined parts or rapid-tooled pilot runs. It also works for consumer-product makers who want one shop for mixed-process prototypes.