Pop Mart and Vinyl Art Toy Factory, Art Toys Production

POP MART has a complete toy supply chain in China, which make collectible art toy production processes to be completed in the vinyl art toy factory. It is a win-win cooperation for POP MART and the factory.

As for POP MART’s art toys, many people don’t know how vinyl toys are produced in the toy factory, a small art toy of about 10 cm is complicated in the production process, and even needs to go through 200 processes.

Do you think such a complicated production process must be making an expensive handicraft? In fact, this is the birth process of “Trainee” in POP MART’s SKULLPANDA series, and the finished product is about 10cm high.

Behind the little art toy, there are many details hidden. More than 20 parts of “Trainee” were polished patiently by workers one by one, after several times of pad printing and spray painting. The head, body, hands, and feet gradually show rich colors, and the details of each component are perfect.

On the face, it takes 10 processes to print the eyes, eye shadow, and blush need 15 times repeated color matching to show the ideal effect. It takes 181 processes from the production of vinyl to coloring, to rigorous inspection, and finally to assembly and delivery.

In the world of art toys, design is the core, and the supply chain is a necessary part to realize art toys. POP MART Supply Chain is a magic factory, which turns 2D designs from paper into art toys that finally reach players, from different production lines, you can see how art toys are made.

Art toy factory Improves The Manufacturing Process

The manufacturing process of art toys can be simply divided into polishing, spraying, painting, coloring by hand, and finally assembling each part of the body. In the early years, there were about 12 to 15 disassembly parts of an art toy, ss the design became complicated, the number of parts and colors would increased. Now, the number of disassembly parts of an art toy is generally around 20-30, and the complexity will be more.

“Workers skillfully press the MOLLY’s clothes to the bottom of the pad printing machine. When taking it out, the blank space is filled with patterns, and the color makes the MOLLY come alive. On the other hand, some parts of the finished product are affixed with stickers, which proves that the product is not qualified and needs to be reworked” This is a daily scene in a factory in POP MART, Guangdong.

“From the beginning of mold making, a small collectible vinyl figure of 10cm or 20cm, with more than one hundred processes. If there are more complicated in different colors, there are two or three hundred processes.” Stone Yuan, vice president of POP MART, said that both MOLLY and DIMOO are made up of many small parts. “Although the MOLLY size is not as big as that of an iPhone, there are many small components such as hands, feet, and eyes, and more than 20 pairs of different molds are needed.”

Different from traditional toys, the main consumers of art toys are adults, their stricter appearance requirements for art toys make them have high-level handicraft details. Adding polishing links can make art toys more beautiful, and no parting line can be seen. But the manufacturing cost is increased, and the cost of each one will increase by 20%.

At present, the process details used in the POP MART blind box are leading in the industry, including vinyl mold design, making, detail polishing, transparent, gradient, etc. The art toys made are more delicate and the color effect is more good-looking.

POP MART has no plans to build its own factory at present, Stone Yuan visits different factories, hoping to establish a longer-term partner. Most factories are cooperative, but Stone Yuan can know the production cost structure and control the quality.

Before accepting orders from POP MART, the factory mainly made toys for well-known toy brands. POP MART’s requirements are very strict, especially the MOLLY and Monster, which is quality inspection one by one, and are much more difficult to produce than traditional toys.

POP MART And Art Toy Factory, A Win-Win Cooperation

Most toys in the world are made in China. Guangdong is the largest toy production and export province in China, with toy exports accounting for 70% of China and more than 50% of the global market. When supply and demand change, such as the changes in COVID-19 and international relations, many toy factories go bankrupt due to lack of orders.

POP MART is trying to build a new cooperative relationship with art toy manufacturers: helps the toy factory to develop technology, improve quality and production process through continuous communication and long-term cooperation. It is not to say that it is finished by making one times order, but about technical analysis and results sharing among teams. in depth. This cooperation process is not easy, but the final goal is to achieve a win-win situation, and everyone can make a reasonable profit.

POP MART has set up the Engineering and Technology Development Department.  The engineer can visit the factory at any time to understand the technological and engineering problems faced in the process of art toy development and production. Because some factories don’t have a perfect team, it will be more efficient and fast for POP MART to help with production process improvement and control, and help factories have the ability to make new processes and complicated projects.

For example, the material used in POP MART now is PVC or ABS, and the acrylic spray process. Some processes such as high lighting, high transparency, parting line, UV, etc. Many factories can’t make these difficult art toys without these experiences and abilities, so they can’t get orders from POP MART.

Some factories like SZRDDM have many benefits from cooperation with POP MART. The craft level has been improved, In addition to fulfilling the order requirements and production capacity of POP MART, it can also fulfill the orders of internationally famous toy brands, such as Funko, Kidrobot, and Hasbro.