Qian Hongming soon had to get busy with his affairs. He was so busy that to solve Liu Jun’s problem, he had been on business trips for many days, almost wanting to emulate Yu the Great, who passed his home three times without entering. Liu Jun, meanwhile, drove back to the company with windows down, whistling, incredibly pleased with himself.
Returning to the company, thinking about whether the septic tank cover he had ordered fixed this morning was completed, he got out of the car and went to check while pinching his nose. Seeing that new concrete slabs had been moved in to partition it and the gaps filled, he felt relieved. He had never imagined before that managing a factory would involve so many big and small matters. Although the administrative manager was quite capable, he still felt like a major steward, managing from top to bottom with every aspect requiring attention – impossible to escape. But today he was happy.
Liu Jun walked along the west wall to the office entrance and saw Luo Qing at the door, craning his neck to look eastward. Being in high spirits, he whistled to alert Luo Qing that someone was behind him. Luo Qing had long grown accustomed to Liu Jun’s lack of airs, but today was still startled by Liu Jun’s excitement. He quickly said, “I just saw Mr. Liu’s car come in and thought you’d come from the east. I’ve finished drawing the blueprints – please check if there are any errors.”
Luo Qing was diligent and clever, lacking only experience. Yesterday, Liu Jun had asked him to complete the surveying and mapping of a processed product and component drawings. He had thought this inexperienced person would need at least two days and nights, but unexpectedly, it was completed in just over a day. Liu Jun praised him generously, “Well done! Let me see how many bugs you drew today – spring is peak season for bugs.”
Luo Qing smiled embarrassedly. He had originally thought that, as a university graduate with high scores in descriptive geometry, drawing a few component diagrams should be no problem. Unexpectedly, his first blueprint came out almost unrecognizable after Liu Jun’s revisions, leaving him so ashamed he nearly resigned. Under Liu Jun’s guidance, he rapidly improved, and the components he surveyed and mapped became increasingly complex.
Liu Jun went to Luo Qing’s office to look at the drawings and immediately said, “Good! I was wondering yesterday whether you’d think of taking this cross-section – without a sectional drawing, it would be really hard to explain clearly.” Luo Qing was affirmed and smiled happily. Yes, this cross-section had occurred to him in a half-awake state last night – truly a stroke of genius. He watched as Liu Jun said nothing more but took a 2H pencil and ruler to lightly mark the drawing, looking up at him after each mark. Luo Qing would figure out where the error was and respond accordingly. From one set of blueprints, five bugs were still picked out. Liu Jun tapped the drawing with his pencil tip and said cheerfully, “Very good! There are no more fundamental errors. If you can eliminate these non-standard errors, the blueprints you produce will be perfect.”
Luo Qing looked at his boss, who had quickly resolved these blueprints, yet was only a few years older than him, and asked puzzledly, “Mr. Liu, when you first started working, how long did you raise bugs?”
“I grew up soaking in the workshop. Before attending university, I had already handled almost all the blueprints at Progressive Plant. Don’t compare yourself to me – don’t be discouraged, you’re already lightning fast.”
“Are you comforting me?”
“This evil capitalist of mine would love to criticize you so I could conveniently dock your wages, hehe.”
Liu Jun walked out of Luo Qing’s office. The technical department’s office had a special design – a large hall facing south, entirely carpeted, quiet, and elegant. Floor-to-ceiling glass windows faced the still sparse landscaping, with sufficient light and an open view. Inside were several small coffee tables and one large wooden table, with comfortable chairs scattered about, tea and purified water available. Surrounding the hall were small rooms that everyone called “KTV private rooms” – spaces each technical person could close off and enjoy privately. Currently, only Liu Jun, Luo Qing, and another assistant engineer who had graduated from university just over two years ago occupied the private rooms.
With the startup funding issue resolved, Liu Jun had originally been very happy, thinking he wanted to sleep, to calmly have a good, long sleep until the world turned upside down. But once back at the company, once he started handling affairs, he couldn’t let go. Still, Liu Jun finished dinner and decided that even if the sky fell, he wouldn’t care. He turned off his phone and crawled into the dormitory to sleep. With the startup funding problem solved, all other problems were within his controllable range. He was so grateful to Qian Hongming that he didn’t know how to express his thanks, wanting to rush up and embrace and kiss him, but unfortunately, Qian Hongming, the conservative, strongly rejected same-sex hugging.
Installation went smoothly, as Liu Jun had long expected.
Training went smoothly, which pleasantly surprised Liu Jun a bit – he loved Tengfei Company’s employees.
Management was well in place – this was the flower Liu Jun most努力培育. He had transplanted Germany’s complete system to Tengfei, cultivating Tengfei’s management like an isolated island in this industrial zone. See, he could increasingly delegate workshop management, freeing himself to do work befitting a general manager and technical director. He needed to continue research on that series. Now things were different from the past – he had some testing equipment on hand and no longer needed to seek help from Shi Yiji. But he had learned from experience – all key data he kept to himself, locked in his private safe.
To compete with those crudely imitated series products, Liu Jun worked even more painstakingly in design. The successful trial production of the first product in the series gave him many new insights, which he incorporated into new products, striving for greater precision, strength, and durability. This time, he researched and trial-produced one product in the new series in just one month. He took the product to his alma mater for testing, performance comprehensively exceeded conventional requirements. He excitedly handed the product to his father for promotion. His father’s market promotion ability was ten times better than his own.
Liu Shitang’s market results were as Dong Qiyang had predicted. Precisely because the market was flooded with passable imitation products of mediocre quality, market demand for Tengfei Company’s premium products wasn’t high. However, there were still a few companies planning to make premium products, but when Liu Shitang approached them, he was dismissed in a few words. The reason: they didn’t trust domestically produced goods. Those buyers had plenty of bitter experiences with domestic products – samples from domestic companies were good, and initially promised conditions were realistic, but once contracts were signed and advance payments received, all sorts of tricks emerged. Being able to receive half the products matching samples on time was already considered good. Many companies had long regarded domestic goods as synonymous with substandard products.
Liu Shitang never imagined that products of identical precision would encounter such drastically different treatment this time. After being rejected by two companies, Liu Shitang immediately devised a flexible plan, deciding to downgrade his position and redesign his business cards. He urgently called the company, having his son translate the new business cards into German. Thus, when he set out next time, besides beautifully printed Chinese-German product catalogs, the business cards he produced were in Chinese-English-German trilingual format, reading: Liu Shitang, Marketing Department 2 Manager, German-funded Tengfei Manufacturing Co., Ltd. For business, he abandoned even his self-appointed, supposedly fashionable title of Executive Director.
Sure enough, once the business cards changed, he achieved great success from the start – doors were easier to enter. Once inside, things were manageable. Liu Shitang quickly convinced the first company to sit down and discuss specific technical matters with them. With Liu Shitang’s call, Liu Jun brought Luo Qing and another technical person to the scene. Liu Jun laid out design concepts and company regulations at the negotiating table, completely winning over the buyers. The four people from Tengfei Company heard the most ridiculous praise, which made all four of them suppress laughter to the point of internal injury on the spot, while back at the hotel, they felt deeply moved. Those buyer representatives kept saying that this was indeed worthy of a fully German-funded company’s output – only such meticulous regulations could produce finished products so completely different from domestic goods.
Tengfei factory’s products were clearly of pure Chinese lineage – research and manufacturing entirely domestic Chinese goods – yet because they hung sheep’s heads, they were viewed with new respect. They all found it both funny and sad, especially the three young people, who felt a wave of sorrow. Liu Jun had already felt sorrow upon sorrow, but quickly calmed down and did what needed doing. Luo Qing and the other one, however, continued discussing endlessly, exploring the issue in depth with engineering students.
But prices indeed couldn’t go up. Even hanging German sheep’s heads, and despite Liu Shitang using every negotiating trick, he couldn’t negotiate prices to the glory days of Progressive Plant. Helplessly, he had to accept prices considerably lower than his psychological threshold. Liu Jun sighed deeply, seeing the prices – such gross margins couldn’t reflect the value of intellectual labor. If this product were developed by a technical team of several senior technical personnel, such gross margins probably wouldn’t even cover technical personnel salaries. But he had to accept this price – this was the market, and product pricing depended on the market. Moreover, he needed income to quickly repay the money Qian Hongming had helped him arrange. After consideration, he could only pursue volume.
But where would he get skilled workers to produce products for him? Of course, only by poaching people, from Shi Yiji, from other companies. Poaching wasn’t easy, and the key issue was that poached people weren’t familiar with Tengfei’s high standards and strict requirements. Often their work was acceptable, but their attitude on the first day of trial work already dissatisfied Liu Jun. Liu Jun’s attitude remained very firm: no. He’d rather slowly train complete novices. Therefore, Liu Jun’s volume pursuit plan couldn’t be realized, and production capacity was severely limited.
When the east mountain isn’t bright, the west mountain is. With work not intense, Liu Jun had more time to develop new products. Because bonuses began being distributed, Tengfei employees’ income immediately improved dramatically, almost doubling. When the administrative manager took such substantial monthly income to set up stalls at talent markets, posting announcements, more people came, and the quality of candidates among applicants slightly increased. Liu Jun finally recruited an experienced engineer with ideas, then came a second one. Workers were the same. Previously, market-rate monthly income made workers unwilling to constrain themselves, but now with high salaries leading the way, even sitting motionless for eight hours without eating or drinking had people eagerly signing up.
Tengfei’s manpower became increasingly sufficient, finally achieving three-shift continuous production. Qian Hongming took over all of Tengfei Company’s export agency work. This time, Liu Shitang had nothing to say – it was Qian Hongming’s risk-taking that gave Tengfei a lifeline. From then on, Qian Hongming held equal status with Liu Shitang. This was reality.