The Fiery Era: Becoming an Industrial Giant

Chapter 164 Branch Factory Merger Plan
After the National Day holiday, the enthusiasm for production gradually subsided.

Although the passion still exists, Zhou Zhiqiang has gradually brought the factory's production enthusiasm to a suitable level.

It was only after he became the factory director that he realized how difficult it was to manage so many people; some of the stubborn ones just wouldn't understand what he was saying, which caused Zhou Zhiqiang a lot of trouble.

One machine tool after another was produced and then transported away.

Once the factory has more than twenty machine tools piled up, the department will be notified to send a transport fleet to remove them.

Knowing that the machine tools they manufacture can help the country makes all the workers happy.

Moreover, the logistics staff are working hard to ensure that the front-line production workers have meals when they work overtime. In order to allocate and exchange more supplies, Tian Wenguo traveled to three other cities within half a month.

Finally, the mushrooms from the factory were sold for a good price.

Although they wouldn't be able to eat refined grains, everyone would at least get an extra cornbread made from coarse grains.

Spread evenly among 1,400 mouths, that's no small number.

It's now November, and the machine tool production figures for last month have been compiled.

The head of the dispatching department was in Zhou Zhiqiang's office, reporting to him on the factory's production status from the previous month.

“Deputy Factory Director Zhou, last month our factory not only completed the original task, but also exceeded the planned task by producing six more units.”

Upon hearing the result, Zhou Zhiqiang raised his head slightly. He had originally planned that 150 units would be the factory's production limit.

To his surprise, the factory workers gave him a pleasant surprise and even produced six more units than he had planned.

"There are still four units left in the factory warehouse that haven't been delivered yet. Deputy Factory Director Zhou, should we report them to next month's outbound list, or keep them and handle them ourselves?"

Upon hearing this, Zhou Zhiqiang looked at the head of the dispatching department in surprise and said, "What are you going to do with it? This is a coordinate boring machine used by the national defense and military industry. Even if you want to deal with it, who would dare to take this thing?"

Ordinary machine tools are one thing, since the government doesn't strictly regulate them.

After the planers produced by the Second Machine Tool Plant were handed over and sent away according to the planned task, the plant had to find a way to deal with the extra planers produced.

They either allocate the machine tools to other factories or sell them. Every year, many counties and cities want to develop their industries and will send special purchasing personnel to purchase more machine tools.

But coordinate boring machines are different; they are something the ministry is keeping a close eye on. The newly arrived deputy section chief Zhao from the security section may have another task that he hasn't told Zhou Zhiqiang about: keeping an eye on coordinate boring machines.

Zhou Zhiqiang said, "This idea is not what it seems. The extra machine tools produced will be included in the next shipment list and then reported to the ministry."

"Yes, factory manager, I understand."

The head of the dispatching department quickly said that, and then confirmed the production tasks for December with Zhou Zhiqiang before taking his leave.

Thanks to the National Day holiday last month, the factory workers were particularly motivated during production, and thus exceeded their targets by a considerable margin.

If the factory can produce six more units each month, it will generate an additional 270,000 yuan in output value, which adds up to more than 3 million yuan a year.

However, that would be too much of a test of the workers' spirit and physical strength. With production running non-stop all year round, even Zhou Zhiqiang wouldn't dare say he could definitely pull through.

Therefore, Zhou Zhiqiang did not set 156 units as the target for December, but kept it at 150 units.

However, during this period, Zhou Zhiqiang did not do nothing except for production and the technical research and development of universal grinding machines.

He visited other machine tool factories and machining plants, and gained some understanding of some factories that were struggling to develop and had difficulty breaking through technological bottlenecks.

These factories were all small factories built before the founding of the People's Republic of China, but they did not receive significant investment from the state for development after the public-private partnership was established.

After all, the country had engineering projects aided by the Russians at the time, and all industrial investments had to revolve around...
The factory has only two or three hundred employees, and sometimes four or five hundred, but the workers are very skilled and can be put into the new production process with a little training.

This kind of factory should be used by the Second Machine Tool Plant.

By integrating them, they can become a branch of the second machine tool factory, which will be able to share a significant amount of processing tasks.

If there were multiple branch factories with 800 or even 1,000 employees, the production efficiency of the Second Machine Tool Plant could be increased by one-fifth.

Since returning last month, Zhou Zhiqiang has been working on the plan to merge the factories; if it weren't for this, he wouldn't have put aside the production at his factory and made a special trip to visit other factories.

dong dong!

Hearing a knock at the door, Zhou Zhiqiang called out without looking up, "Come in."

After the person came in, Zhou Zhiqiang looked up and saw that it was Ding Zhixue from the technical department. He smiled and said, "Section Chief Ding, what's the matter? The teapot is over there. Just pour it for yourself. I won't get up."

"Factory manager, I can do it myself."

After Ding Zhixue finished speaking, he poured himself a cup of tea. Although the tea was a little cold, it was enough to quench his thirst.

This tea set was bought by Zhou Zhiqiang from a trust store. It looks a bit like a Yixing teapot, but it's definitely not. He bought the whole set for three yuan and put it in his office to entertain guests.

Zhou Zhiqiang drinks water from a large tea mug with a model worker badge on it. He feels very prestigious to bring this mug to meetings.

Other cadres rarely receive the honor of model worker. It was only because Zhou Zhiqiang frequently worked in the workshop and made many contributions that he received it.

"Section Chief Ding, what's the matter?"

"Factory manager, the technical department has checked all the blueprints for the universal grinding machine's parts and performed multiple calculations to confirm that they are correct."

Ding Zhixue handed Zhou Zhiqiang a draft application report for the trial production of a universal grinding machine and continued, "I think we can start manufacturing now, but we need cooperation from other factories for many parts."

"I'll help with the contacting. I've already spoken to those factories; the department can just issue them production orders directly."

As Zhou Zhiqiang spoke, he carefully read the report. After a while, he signed and stamped it, and said to Ding Zhixue, "I have to go to the ministry this afternoon. After I finish talking to the leader about this matter, I will make arrangements for you when I get back."

However, as you know, our factory isn't very well-staffed, so production can be slowed down.

Every senior worker in the factory has heavy production tasks. It wasn't particularly busy before, but now, if Zhou Zhiqiang were to transfer two people from one workshop, the workshop director would be furious.

They are already working around the clock to keep up with production, so losing a senior worker would have a significant impact on them.

Zhou Zhiqiang said, "I will come to help when I have time, and I should be able to come three days a week. But we just need to produce a qualified prototype before the end of the year. This matter is not really in a hurry."

He only arrived at the Second Machine Tool Plant at the beginning of this year, and the fact that he was able to test-produce the universal grinding machine by the end of the year is considered as fulfilling his promise to the leadership.

"I know that. I will have the technical department complete the preliminary coordination work as soon as possible, and then wait for your notification, factory manager."

After Ding Zhixue finished speaking, he chatted with Zhou Zhiqiang about some technical matters. Then, seeing that Zhou Zhiqiang was busy approving documents while talking to him, he said goodbye and left. It was almost noon.

Zhou Zhiqiang picked up the phone and called Director Ren to report that he had some work to discuss in person and would be on his way there immediately.

The food at the ministry was slightly better than at the factory, and going to the ministry would save you a meal. After Zhou Zhiqiang took over, he also learned to be a little more frugal.

It's not that I'm really short of a meal, but it's so easy to build a relationship with them, which will make things easier later.

------

First Ministry of Machine Building, Machine Tool Administration Bureau.

Zhou Zhiqiang is so familiar with this place that it's practically like coming home; everyone in the office knows him.

After finding a clerk and asking him to arrange a driver to bring him here, Zhou Zhiqiang went straight to Director Ren's office.

dong dong.

"come in."

After Zhou Zhiqiang pushed open the door and entered, he smiled and said to Director Ren, "Director Ren, still busy?"

"Huh? What are you saying? If it weren't for waiting for you, I would have gone to eat right now. No wonder you, Director Zhou, called me at just the right time."

Director Ren quickly realized what was going on, pointed at Zhou Zhiqiang and said with a smile, "You little rascal, you're full of intelligence, but you only used half of it for research and development. The other half was all spent on figuring out how to squeeze things out of the leaders!"

All the other subordinates were thinking about giving gifts to their leaders, but Zhou Zhiqiang was an exception. When he came to the department, he would act as if he had suffered a loss if he didn't take something with him.

"It was just a coincidence. I had just finished my work at this time, and I also needed to report to you, so I came over now."

"Alright, do you think I'm that easy to fool?"

Director Ren said with a smile, then stood up and said, "The lunchbox you used last time is still here with me. It's almost become a regular lunchbox."

"Let's go eat first. If you don't have anything important to do after we eat, I'll have to give you more responsibilities."

Zhou Zhiqiang followed and said with a smile, "That's definitely not the case."

After they finished speaking, the two picked up their lunchboxes and headed towards the department's canteen.

The food was indeed better than what they had at the factory; there were two dishes with minced meat on them. When the canteen staff saw Director Ren giving Zhou Zhiqiang a meal ticket, they gave him two extra spoonfuls.

After finding a place to sit down, Director Ren said, "Your timing is perfect. The ministry only serves meat dishes three times a month these days, and you've come at the right time."

"Then I've finally gotten a free ride. By the way, Director, does our bureau have a policy of concentrating resources on major tasks?"

"What other ideas do you have for concentrating resources to accomplish major tasks?"

"Never mind, let's talk about it after we finish eating."

After Zhou Zhiqiang finished speaking, he focused on eating. The steamed buns made from two kinds of flour and two dishes with meat were quite good.

In fact, Zhou Zhiqiang's treatment was quite good. He received the salary of a level 5 engineer, and his meat and oil allowances were much higher than those of others.

Although it was a difficult time, the state provided as much compensation as it could for scientific and technical personnel. Zhou Zhiqiang's monthly meat ration was more than that of Ren Licheng, the director of the Machine Tool Administration.

However, apart from the necessities for the children, the rest of the meat ration coupons and other supplies that were distributed were exchanged by Zhou Zhiqiang and his wife for national grain coupons and sent to his father-in-law.

Guo Linhua's supplies were also plentiful, but Zhou Zhiqiang's brother-in-law's rations were quite limited. Due to the poor conditions in the Production and Construction Corps, most of Guo Linhua's rations were used to support his son's family.

This was still not enough, so I wrote to Zhou Zhiqiang and his wife to ask if they could provide some assistance.

After seeing the letter, Zhou Zhiqiang tried to find a way to exchange it for some national grain coupons, along with some sugar and canned goods, and packed it into a large package to send to his father-in-law.

Previously, when he borrowed money from Guo Linhua to buy a courtyard house, his father-in-law sent the money back without hesitation, and Zhou Zhiqiang did the same this time.

Upon hearing Guo Yuting's suggestion, he didn't hesitate much and immediately began inquiring about the allocation of supplies.

It was thanks to asking several leaders and even contributing some of my own money that those canned meats could have been exchanged so easily.

After lunch.

After Zhou Zhiqiang followed Director Ren back to his office, he took out the documents from his briefcase and handed them over.

"Director Ren, there are two things. Our factory is developing a universal grinding machine and is planning to start trial production."

The technical process has undergone repeated testing and should be fine; however, the specific results will depend on the trial production. Personally, I feel there shouldn't be any problems.

Zhou Zhiqiang gave Director Ren a detailed report on the matter, and the latter nodded happily after listening.
"Okay, you've got this message. If it's all like this from now on, you can come every day, and I'll provide you with food, good cigarettes, and good wine every day."

"Then forget it, Director Ren. You only come once a year. I'm already losing all my hair."

Zhou Zhiqiang shook his head and said, "The technical department is still short-staffed. Director Ren, you must continue to allocate more people to us next year. Last month, four technicians fell ill from exhaustion."

Once they fell ill, everyone else got busy too. If the four who were sick hadn't returned quickly, the technical department would probably have been overworked even more.

Upon hearing this, Director Ren said, "I understand. I'll assign you a place. I'll poach people from other factories for you later."

The ministry had originally planned to strongly support the expansion of the Second Machine Tool Plant, but this was an internal discussion and had not yet been announced to the public.

The ministry's investment share will be very small next year because the painful lessons learned from last year and this year have made them exceptionally cautious about expanding their investments.

To avoid waste, we must be extremely cautious when approving factory expansions.

The Second Machine Tool Plant is special. It is already worthwhile for the ministry to invest in its expansion with just one coordinate boring machine. If the universal grinding machine that Zhou Zhiqiang mentioned earlier can also be produced, then it is even more worthwhile to expand.

Director Ren asked, "Anything else? I remember you said there were two things. What's the other piece of good news?"

"Another idea suddenly came to me a few days ago when I was on a field trip."

After handing another report to Director Ren, Zhou Zhiqiang continued, "There are many small factories in the counties surrounding Beijing that may cause unnecessary waste in production, as well as disorderly and erroneous production tasks."
"If the ministry could integrate these factories and establish a supporting processing branch for the Second Machine Tool Plant, our factory's production efficiency would be even higher."

After receiving the document, Director Ren listened and read at the same time. When he saw one of the suggestions, his eyes widened, and he looked up and said, "Why are you even eyeing the First Machine Tool Plant?"

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(End of this chapter)