Who makes trampolines?

Nov 22, 2024 | 4 minutes read | Written by Julie

Who makes our trampolines? - Handmade Trampolines

Ignorant or uneducated? I am unsure this is what I have been over the years but I sit and write this article for you on a plane, travelling across the centre of China reflecting upon yet another 3 weeks at our trampoline factory.
I am marvelling at the volume the company produces to distribute globally and how my early understanding or perception of manufacturing in China didn’t include so many people doing absolutely everything for production (as they actually do).
Somehow I once thought, without really thinking I guess, that robots and machines made everything although there was the huge media focus of China engaging all their manpower in the production of every product known to man. Not sure how reality didn’t come close for me?

My husband worked at Alcoa and in that smelter/factory environment, men were mainly there to oversee machines and computers but weren’t used for every single movement which is what happens still to this day in China.
So from my very first factory visit 10 years ago through to now, when I am brought back to the reality that every single thing in my life that has a label on it which says Made in China I am reminded, it all has a very real and true human element to it.
My purpose here today is to bring your awareness to this too. When something is made so much by hand and has so many individual human hands touch it, it will be a little different to the next one.
Handmade is a value included in our trampolines that is often overlooked even by ourselves.
If a face could be added to every stage I would.

Helen is our primary English communicating sales person who takes our orders and translates every detail for their purchasing department to do the ordering of all parts and produce, that is unique for us, and then arrange a delivery schedule for production to produce.
There is so much scheduling and ordering to meet all deadlines to ultimately have a completed container for shipping.
Helen's translation skills do keep getting better and better.
Communication is key and it starts here with Helen and us being 100% clear with each other, a small detail to clarify can take a number of graphics, photos, and data to fully explain to be sure all is correct.
Visiting does fast-track a lot of communication so the value of working directly with Helen and others at the factory is more efficient and less frustrating for both sides.

Mr. Zhang and his team make the steel frame, cut, bend, punch holes, file burrs, make springs and supervise galvanising.
They are a great team of engineers, boilermakers, and labourers, full of creative minds with good ideas and initiative all of which we are grateful for.

Miss Wu and her team of bright ladies layout and cut materials for mats and padding.
They piece and sew everything together with care.
Due to our padding thickness, they have to work extra hard but they do it motivated by pride that they are making quality products.
A team of ladies also oversee quality and do the folding of each item.

A nice young guy and his team arrange the packaging.
Ensure the production line has every item at the right stations for putting into the cartons.
He also calculates the method for packing the container considering weight and carton size so that the side loader at our warehouse can unload the container off the truck and position it on the ground for us to unload.

There is something like almost 200 trampoline factories across China each with 80-300+ workers.
Quite a mind-blowing fact really.
Some of the factories make nothing else but trampolines others fill their production lines with other products from time to time as well.

Scroll down this page a little further for more articles of interest related to importing and manufacturing trampolines.