Powertec Factory Visit

I have just come back from my tour of the Powertec factory in Shanghai. It was the experience of a life time! This was only my 2nd overseas trip. So going to Shanghai is really taking a jump in the deep end. I try to avoid the city centre in Sydney at peak times because I hate crowds. Well Shanghai makes Sydney look like a sleepy country town.The Powertec factory was much bigger than I expected and the photos do not fully show the scale of the operation. I should have got a photo of the lunch room at lunch time to show just how many people work there.

The production process starts with the raw material, which in this case is mostly steel tubing. They use that much that is unloaded and moved with the two overhead cranes highlighted in the picture above.

The steel tubing is then cut to the required length. There were 10 bays dedicating to just cutting material.

These are hole punching machines. For the power racks they feed the uprights straight in and these bad boys punch all the holes in seconds.

Now this is a hole punching machine! This will drive a hole through 60mm steel. Also great for trimming your finger nails.

This photo shows the scale of the production runs at the factory. Powertec enthusiasts will recognise this part as the section that holds the foot plate and rollers on the hyperextension. One of these is required for each unit. I reckon there is at least 200 there.

I was blown away to see all the robot welding bays. I honestly did’t expect to see this level of automation in China.

The paint booth was huge. There were several sections where the metal is treated first and then powder coated. You can see all the raw product, in this case power rack uprights, on the conveyor running along the outside of the booth.

All the parts stacked after they have been painted and dried. There are a lot of multi gyms there!

This line is where the all the parts are packed and strapped.

Powertec do’t warehouse stock here. All the finished stock is shipped straight out. This is probably a third of the stock that was waiting to be shipped. Once again this shows the level of output that goes through this facility. As mentioned previously, I incorrectly assumed that the production process would be more labour intensive. I did’t expect that the factory would be equipped with such sophisticated machinery. I had visions of bay after bay of workers feverishly welding away. As you can see from this short clip the robot makes short work of the upright section of the Powertec Multi System.

With this level of automation combined with the scale of the operation you end up with a quality product at a fraction of the price that it would cost to produce in Australia or the United States. Lastly I would like to send out a big thanks to the boys in the R & D section. I had a great couple of days working alongside them as they put the finishing touches on some cool new attachments and products. These guys were some of the most enthusiastic and hard working people I have ever come across. If I suggested a change to product the spanners would come out and the part whisked away. In no time at all the part would come back finished.