Maple Tree produces components and sub-systems up to complete systems; from electronic to mechanical, even mesh or other products. To achieve better cost, lead-time and quality, we can assist with localisation of designs and components using in-house design engineers. Our specialisation is the supply of custom engineering defined products requiring higher levels of interaction and inspection (not off-the-shelf); low to medium quantity batch sizes with higher quality standards are typical. Most of our office and technical staff speak English to facilitate effective communications.
Maple Tree's in-house engineering and manufacturing teams in cooperation with specialised external process providers offer you the best benefits of China- cost and scalability- while also enforcing protection of the owner's Intellectual Property Rights (IPR)1. Only Maple Tree has access to the full design info- which is protected within a secure Linux computer system with access control/ blocking and logging; staff and suppliers are only provided with a small subset of the design information on a need to know basis preventing them from being able to reproduce significant parts of the system. Even routine backups are encrypted to help avoid loss of information.
Maple Tree uses carefully selected process providers and suppliers utilising the latest equipment and specialised skills; for example- Amada laser cutters, Brown & Sharpe CMM, Fuji SMT. Many of these suppliers are also providing for other high quality global brands such as BMW, Haier and Toyota. Maple Tree's engineering and inspection staff supervise all processes and results through completion including inbound inspection, in-house final assembly, testing and packing for export. The use of customised computer based test equipment helps ensure maximum functional testing.
Casting & Precision Castings
Maple Tree maintains a group of casting and precision casting suppliers experienced in a variety of metals (including stainless steel, steel alloys). Our experience shows that casting in China is very attractively priced compared with Western countries- both the product and the tooling- resulting not just in overall product cost savings but enabling casting for more components and hence saving cost. Even larger components that had previously been machined in Western countries due to the higher cost of moulds are now enjoying cost and quality advantages from casting in China.
Although casting provides a unique set of problems, the use of x-ray and ultrasound analysis are utilised to validate the design and spectrum analysis to verify material composition helps eliminate later problems. Our castings are used in a wide range of applications including health care and industrial.
Die Casting
Maple Tree supplies both die casting and vacuum die casting products using a variety of Al alloys (including Zamac2). Die casting components' excellent detail, surface quality and dimensional consistency make it the preferred option for many applications and in some cases obviates further finishing steps. We are currently producing for the health care and industrial markets. Maple Tree also arranges the tooling for die casting; our discussions with our tooling manufacturer and your engineers ensures effective design and implementation.
Injection Moulded Plastics
Injection moulded plastics are ideal for enclosures for electronics, housings for industrial devices or even moving parts; Maple Tree provides a variety of injection moulded plastic parts in ABS3, PE4 and PP5 in addition to autoclave-friendly plastics suitable for medical grade products. Our engineers can work with your team and our mould manufacturers to provide considerable savings over Western sourced moulds. We can provide fixed and moving part moulds and the ability for inserts during injection. Depending on the type and quantity of parts required, we choose from one of several highly experienced injection moulding providers with whom we have years of experience to manufacture- from hundreds of pieces up to millions.
VacuFormed Plastics
Vacuforming (vacuum forming) is useful for larger shaped plastic pieces and for smaller production runs, even prototypes, to avoid the higher costs of tooling for injection moulds. Our experience ranges from small to large (over 2m) for a variety of applications including industrial and health, medical using primarily ABS plastic. We also supply the necessary tooling.
Sheet Metal
Sheet metal provides a convenient method of creating many industrial housings and other components, but requires a wide variety of processes. A typical piece of sheet metal may be sawn, sheared, laser cut or stamped prior to bending/ shaping and then further processing such as machining, welding, etc. We deal with a variety of sheet metals, including various grades of steel and aluminium sheet, as well as profiles such as RHS/ SHS6. Maple Tree will perform cost analyses of competing processes, ie. laser cutting versus stamping, and recommend the most cost effective solution for your application as well as arrange all tooling.
Welding
Maple Tree performs welding on different materials such as aluminium, steel and stainless steel including sheet metals, profiles and machined parts. Our in-house welding team are experienced in electric arc (shielded metal arc welding or SMAW), MiG7 and TiG8 welding. Our welding services are adaptable to meet industry specific requirements, for example medical devices often require clean smooth welds to assist in infection control.
Tooling including Moulds
A wide variety of tools may be required for a complete product. Our experience clearly indicates that close collaboration between the tool maker, tool user and product designer(s) provides the best cost and performance. We are perpetually custom manufacturing tooling for new products and components and welcome the opportunity to work with you on customising tooling for your applications. Typically ownership of tooling is maintained by the customer and not allocated into the per-piece pricing to ensure effective control over quality. We have experience providing tooling for all the sub-processes identified here for production use. Prototyping tooling such as wooden moulds for vacuforming have been used on occasion to provide shorter lifetime but low cost tooling.
Machining & Precision Machining
Maple Tree uses a small group of machine shops based upon the size and processes required; some shops are specialised in small-batch CNC machining while another might be specialised in high precision turning- achieving surface finishes as low as 0.1micron. We also have a turning supplier capable of turning very large pieces- over 1m diamter with non-CNC precision. We work in a wide variety of materials including aluminium alloys, steels, stainless steels as well as BeCu and other specialised materials; some materials we import to ensure highest quality and best cost. Mill certificates are available for all mill stock.
The wide selection of machined products supplied by Maple Tree are used in many industries including hydraulic systems, industrial and medical. Depending on customer requirements, 100% inspection capabilities and random inspection levels are offered.
Electronics
Electronics provide simplified control and management of mechanical systems, as well as providing complete functioning products; Maple Tree manufactures both stand-alone electronic systems as well as a variety of controllers for electro-mechanical products. Our in-house electronics design engineers also design custom controllers for customer applications.
Maple Tree formerly managed a German electronics factory in China before handing back management control recently; during our three years of management the factory output was increased by 700% to become the world's largest producer for their market space.
Analogue and digital, through-hole (DIP) and SMD/ SMT9 mixed technology boards, single and multi-layer PCBs using a mix of foreign branded and Chinese domestic components all ensure a complex mix of electronics capabilities. Conformal coating and potting are also available, as well as custom wiring harnesses, connectors, water proof casings etc. We strongly encourage the use of custom testing harnesses to fully test all functions with the circuits.
Soft Lines
Maple Tree also produces engineering specified soft-lines utilising engineering grade fabrics and materials including polyesters, webbings etc for the supply of sewn components and products. Particular attention has been placed on outdoor, all-weather materials requiring high performance for strength, water permeability or other properties to ensure safety and all environment usage.
Packaging
Packaging is required to transport your product from our factory- whether it be customer-ready packaging, travel-safe packaging or otherwise. We have experience in a wide range of packaging options including:
bleached, unbleached, single colour through multi-colour with gloss cartons;
multi-level cartons with custom labelling capability (ie. batch, serial numbers etc);
blister packs;
custom polystyrene protective packaging;
wooden crates, pallets through sea container loading;
The Qingdao facility has fork truck and loading facilities for 20-foot and 40-foot sea containers as well as custom crates onto trucks.
Sourcing
Few products don't require the sourcing of some off the shelf components- whether it be a spragg bearing, electronic clutch, twin-action carabiner or webbing straps. We have the experience and capability for both technical and non-technical component sourcing and inspection mainly from China but also from overseas. We regularly bring in specialised components from Australia, Europe and North America to meet specialised requirements. Although Maple Tree maintains a large selection of tested and reliable suppliers, we are always finding new specialised suppliers; new factories and their components are subjected to quality and risk assessments including a wide variety of independent laboratory tests for material composition, latex free certification, etc.
Plating, Powder Coating
Most of our steel and aluminium sheet metal work ends up with a beautiful powder coated surface to better endure the elements. Some of our products endure a difficult life in sea-side resorts, gently misted with salty air day and night- requiring dedication to the careful application of Zinc plating and powder coating; this combination has proven difficult for many suppliers in China.
Assembly & Inspection
Every component that enters into our warehouse (for internal use or direct export) is subjected to a documented inspection procedure; the inspection procedures are adjusted based upon customer requirements, supplier experience, product design sensitivity and recent quality statistics. Typical electronic sub-systems are ICT10 tested during PCBA11 and then further exercised using custom test adapters that fully verify all circuit functionality. Typical mechanical components will be measured and inspected with a set of standard and custom inspection equipment including go/ no gauges, projectors, CMM12 and surface finish test equipment.
Since typical products are composed of a hierarchy of materials and processes as described by the BOM13, Maple Tree uses an MRP14 system to track the routing of all materials and processes. For example, a piece of sheet metal may arrive and the MRP tracks its arrival and inbound inspection, then its departure to laser cutting and its further inspection upon return, then its departure to machining etc through all the processes until it becomes a final product.
Maple Tree performs assembly in-house to further ensure quality and confidentiality. All inspection is performed by in-house staff (either in our facilities or at supplier facilities) with support from contracted tests by international standard test laboratories. The in-house assembly also facilitates thorough inspection and quality control.