The Acer PC screen factory in South Africa, a first for the Taiwanese brand, is capable of producing over 900 displays per day at its sprawling Boksburg, Gauteng complex, and the company that runs the plant, CZ Electronics, says this isn’t even running at half of its full potential.

Last year, Acer announced it was taking the big plunge and would begin manufacturing PC monitors locally in South Africa for the first time ever. On Thursday, Hypertext had the opportunity to check out the factory in Boksburg, Gauteng, chat to the directors of the plant and the staff producing the screens.

“Importing fully-built units usually brings very high duties,” Acer country manager Glen Du Toit told Hypertext in June. “In November 2022, we got the blessing from Acer Global to start the process of establishing a partnership [with a local manufacturer].”

This local firm was CZ Electronics, building electronics for brands like MultiChoice, Netstar, Dixon, and recently TCL for the last 15 years, to assemble three different models of Acer monitors for South Africans.

These include two for enterprise and home and most recently one for gaming under the Nitro brand. The sprawling grounds house two factory buildings and two warehouses for completed products where over 500 employees work eight-hour shifts.

“It’s been fantastic,” says CZ factory manager Raj Singh, who adds that his company has been planning with Acer both locally and in Taiwan for the last two years to begin building screens in South Africa.

“The thing about Acer is that they did not ask us ‘When are we getting our product? When are we getting it?’ They gave us time to breathe and do it properly. There are deadlines but there is also drive to have it done right.”

Production of Acer’s monitors starts small. In a separate building, CZ builds motherboards for the screens, starting from a blank slate and then adding tiny electrical components through a semi-automated process.

The blank boards and components are bought mostly from China, but the manufacturing of completed boards happens in-house. The blank boards are taken on a conveyor belt and fed into what is essentially a printer.

Steered by AI-enabled cameras, the printing machine is able to install three components at a time on the blank motherboard. After components are added, they are soldered into the board with a machine that dips board into molted metal.

Across the factory, specific employees have stations where the quality of the product is monitored, again and again. In one specific spot, an AI-enabled camera rapidly studies freshly built boards for imperfections.

Once the motherboards for the screens are completed, they are packaged and sent to the assembly centre by vehicle, a different building in the yard. Here we begin to see the Acer monitors take shape. Singh says that 70 percent of the screens are assembled using imported components, while 30 percent of the components are manufactured in the factory.

Throughout the factory, it is evident that the majority of employees are women. We spoke to a few of the women who spend their days, assembling the screens with experienced care and focus. Most of the women are from the local community, with some coming from as far as Brakpan to work at the facility, usually connected via family members who also work at CZ Electronics.

Singh tells us that Acer’s local manufacturing is not only important for the companies, but for the people in the community.

“For me it is the people. They need jobs. They need to feed their families. Many of these people are breadwinners. And breadwinners in the sense that it is not only them and their families, they also support their parents and their inlaws. Extended family.”

“Why I think Acer is good for us, is that it’s not seasonal. You don’t buy a monitor during Christmas. You buy a monitor because of business, because it is a necessity, because you need it,” he adds.

“This is business that can happen throughout the year.”

All factory employees are contracted, Singh tell us, with seasonal contractors signed up for three-month stints. At peak times, over 120 people can work in the Acer assembly facility specifically, not counting CZ Electronics entire complex.

Workers have a break every three hours of work, as CZ conducted research that indicates that productivity improves with more frequent rest periods. One employee, who told us her name was Meggy, confirmed Singh’s claims.

She told us she enjoys working at the facility. Another employee said that building monitors for Acer was “easy.”

The Nitro screens are assembled and tested once again in a heated room to simulate extended use, and in a dark room to test for any light leakage. The final stop is packaging.

Singh tells us CZ Electronics hopes the monitors can be successful on the market so that production can be increased. He says he wants to ramp up the volume of the factory.

“Where I want it to go is volumes, obviously, the factory is manufacturing at 38 percent capacity, I want to double that at least in the next two years and that’s bringing in volumes from Acer,” he says

“I’m really excited. It’s giving me the opportunity to put a new line in. It’s given our directors and shareholders vision that something that can out from this. A lot of money and time has been spent. Lots of renovations that have happened. There’s lots of skills that we have improved. Lots of people developed.

“This plant has got the potential to put the stars out of the sky.”

Incredible will be the first retailer to get the screens from the Acer factory in Boksburg. The Nitro screens will be retailing for R4 999 at first, sold from 25th November. The price will increase next year to R5 499.

Acer is offering a three-year return warranty on all locally produced screens. The 27-inch screen has a 180Hz display, as well as HDR 400.