Sales days always present a hectic schedule for most companies, and it is no different for the custom PC-building company Dreamcore. I arrived at their showroom in the wake of two massive sales periods that happened almost back to back — The IT Show 2022 and Black Friday.
Almost like clockwork, I see people with trolleys filing in and out of the showroom transporting boxes and containers, each with PC components that would soon make up someone’s desktop machine. Eugene Lim, the co-founder and Chief Marketeer for Dreamcore, comes out to greet my colleagues and me, apologising for the ‘messy’ state of the place.
As a result of their physical showing at The IT Show 2022 and the online sales hype of Black Friday, Dreamcore has garnered a considerable number of orders, with Eugene acknowledging this as the reason the showroom is busier than usual.
Thankfully, I wasn’t there to add to the workload. Instead, my presence was to see how it all happens. No, I’m not talking about how the PCs get built. Dreamcore isn’t shy about showing how they build PCs; they have a special area in the showroom where visitors can peek through the clear glass and see their team of builders work their magic. What isn’t as clear is what happens after you make an order from them — what goes on in the background? I was there to explore that.
It all starts with the order. Whether you go directly to Dreamcore’s showroom at Kim Chuan Drive, visit their booth at an event, or scour through their website, when you finalise the build you are going with and confirm your purchase, it gets sent over to their order system to handle. If everything checks out with payment, it joins the order queue along with other builds that people have customised.
Now is where the guys at Dreamcore come in. The company’s warehouse houses almost all of their PC components just a few floors below the main showroom. Every day, someone from the warehouse reviews an order from the system and sees what parts are needed.
Not all orders are the same. Some machines, labelled as Dream Builds, already have set configurations — in a sense, these desktop machines are pre-built. But the simplified process means that building them is much faster, allowing Dreamcore to offer same-day delivery on those builds. Of course, fully customised orders will require more time in comparison.
After eyeing the order form in hand, one of the workers makes the short walk to the warehouse’s inventory section to take the listed components from the sheet. These are then put into a container which would later be transported to the team upstairs, who would later build the PCs. For now, the overwhelming number of orders means that these are stored at the warehouse first.
Once the time comes, the containers are taken upstairs to the build team, who reside inside the glass-windowed Dream Factory. It is a rather apt name for the space, with hordes of monitors, PC cases, and boxes lining the shelves and workstations. Stepping into the area evokes a sense of organised chaos. While it seems messy at first glance, the Dream Factory does have sectioned areas for specific processes.
Assembled inside the factory is a team of four builders, each tasked with making the machines the customers have ordered. There is a wide variety of configurations possible to order from Dreamcore, but for popular setups (Ryzen 5 5600 + NVIDIA RTX 3060 TI), Eugene mentions that, on average, one builder takes around 30 minutes to finish a PC build.
I glance over to one of the workspaces, where one builder has his hands busy with a customer’s build. He’s dealing with cable management, possibly one of the more disliked parts of building a PC. Nevertheless, watching him work his way through the case’s nooks and crannies to pack in the cables neatly presented its own sense of satisfaction.
At another workstation, his colleague is almost finished with a PC. He is putting the finishing touches on the machine, testing that the RGB lighting and fans are working as intended before he carefully re-inserts the case’s side panel.
Though the build is finished, there is more to be done. The PCs are subjected to a series of tests to check if they are working correctly. Over at one corner of the Dream Factory, four PCs are undergoing some stress testing. The testing usually occurs for several hours, with the people at Dreamcore checking in to see if any of the parts are malfunctioning. Should there be any problems with the PC, the team will then attempt to diagnose and solve the issue.
While this is happening, the problem is also communicated to the customer service team. In fact, they are aware of the entire process from the moment a customer’s order is accepted. In addition, one of their jobs is to ensure that the customer is aware of what is happening with their PC, with regular updates communicated to them through email.
Hafizah Ishk leads the customer service team at Dreamcore. Under her management, the officers communicate exactly what goes on with a customer’s order, such as a PC awaiting availability for components or if there is a problem with a specific part.
The customer service team also responds to customer requests. For example, if someone wants to change something with their build (like if they desire more RAM or a better GPU), the officers will work with the build team to see if it is possible. Hafizah mentions that requests come in all shapes and forms but says that Dreamcore is usually accommodating, even if such requests come last minute when the PC is already built. The company’s Slack app is a regular place to attend to these queries.
When the tests are done, the PCs are set to be sent out to customers! The build team places the finished machine in the case package and wraps it up carefully with the boxes of the equipped components. These are then set aside to be delivered or to await self-collection from the customer.
The experience has been particularly illuminating for someone like me who has little experience with PC-building. It gives me a better appreciation for the craft, especially after seeing how a big company like Dreamcore works.
Now that you know how Dreamcore makes PCs for customers, you may want to order a machine for yourself! Be sure to check out the Dreamcore Website to start customising your PC!
Photos by Russell Loh of the DANAMIC Team.
*Article has been updated for clarity
