How PC cases are made: In-Win Factory Tour

QA and Painting

The end of one of the lines had half built ATX cases stacked up on a pallet nearby. The lady on the right of the first picture is our guide and PR contact, Nelly - she was busy making sure that we were OK to be in this area and that nobody would mind us looking around, but that didn't stop us taking photos and asking questions in the meantime.

On the right (below) is one of the machines in the production line - it uses a reference shape to stamp out the design on to the cut-down plates, then a huge steel bar lifts up the sheet metal and moves it along to the next machine further along.

One thing we did find interesting though was the fact that there are absolutely no hand guards around any of the machines, so you have to be constantly careful about leaning on things and make sure you don't stick your pinkie out when you have a cup of tea. In the UK this would probably be a health and safety nightmare, but the reality is that there's no reason for anyone to be handling these machines in the slightest anyway.


It was very, very loud as we moved through these rows of stamping machines and we saw that all the employees (the ones in orange) were wearing in-ear protection at all times. The gentleman in the left hand picture (above) is working hard to clean off any burr or dust from the newly made front panels. The picture on the right (above) shows one of the QA areas where inspectors will check for defects that might occur mid-run.


Upstairs is where the case panelling gets a lick of paint, should the design require it. The pictures above show all the cases getting a coating of textured black and white paint. The whole painting area is self contained to contain dust and stop grains and imperfections getting into the finish - but that also does a good job of containing the heat and pushing the temperature up. It wasn't long before we were dripping with sweat!


After getting a first coat all the panels are washed, dried, painted and allowed to dry before coming back out into the open painting area again; a very time-consuming process that's intended to minimise defects. The excess paint is taken off and recycled to be used again - as an ISO 14001 company In-Win is very environmentally aware and tries to minimise waste wherever it can.