When will I have a long tassel?

South, Pengcheng City.

Wen Guohui, general manager of Jiachuan Electronics Company, sat in his large leather swivel chair, holding a high-power magnifying glass in his hand and concentrating on observing a piece of metal held in his other hand. The metal piece was only over an inch in size, and its surface was extremely finely processed. What Wen Guohui was looking at were a few lines of small characters engraved on the metal piece.

"Is this what you said was carved by the engraving and milling machine?"

After a while, Wen Guohui raised his head and looked at the person standing across the boss's table. That person was Han Weichang.

Linyi Machinery develops engraving and milling machines to meet the needs of precision mold processing. However, the demand for engraving and milling machines in the mold industry is actually not large. The sales volume of more than 1,000 units a year corresponds to sales of more than 300 million yuan. Even if it is completely taken over by Tengji, it will be enough for Tengji to make ends meet. It is far from enough to regain its glory.

Ye Yongfa pointed out another path to Han Weichang, telling him that in addition to the mold industry, the electronics industry's demand for such engraving and milling machine tools may be more worthy of attention. Ye Yongfa said that his mold company has received orders from many electronics factories that produce various small electrical appliances, such as Walkmans, pagers, and mobile phones.

These small appliances are small in size, but very expensive and have luxury attributes. As a luxury product, consumers are very picky about appearance and are willing to pay a high premium for exquisite appearance. Electronics factories also understand this truth, so they have been racking their brains to make more exquisite casings.

A large part of Ye Yongfa's Xinta Mold Company is making molds for electrical casings for these electronics factories. Electrical appliance casings are made of two types of materials, one is plastic and the other is metal.

The plastic shell is formed by injection molding process, and Xinta Company provides injection molds for electronics factories. Current technology has been able to form very high-resolution patterns on plastic casings. However, because the plastic material is soft, the patterns are easily worn during use, so some plastic casings become unreadable after being used for a period of time. .

The only way to keep the exterior looking beautiful is to use metal. The metal shell is formed by stamping. Large patterns can be stamped out, but some patterns, text, etc. are difficult to stamp out directly. At present, the method used by various electronics factories is to stamp out a metal shell first, and then use a machining center to carve patterns or text on the shell. This is quite similar to the process used by mold factories to make molds.

But the output of molds cannot compare with the output of electronic product casings. Some electronics factories produce tens of millions of Walkmans a year. Have you ever heard of any mold factory whose molds are measured in tens of thousands?

Xinta Mold Company is a large-scale mold company ranked high in Jinnan. The engraving and milling machines that Ye Yongfa wants to purchase are only a few dozen. But if Han Weichang can win an electronics factory, he can easily purchase thousands of engraving and milling machines. China is gradually becoming the world's factory, and half of the world's small home appliances are manufactured in China. If the electronics industry market can be opened, it will be easy to sell 20,000 engraving and milling machines a year.

After receiving this advice from Ye Yongfa, Han Weichang was enlightened. He thanked Ye Yongfa repeatedly, made numerous promises of profit sharing, and then rushed non-stop to the Pearl River Delta, which is the production center of small electrical appliances.

Jiachuan Electronics Company was the first electronics company Han Weichang visited. This company is currently a world-famous electrical appliance OEM company. Many electrical products of internationally renowned brands are OEM manufactured by Jiachuan Company.

Han Weichang came to Jiachuan Company and handed over his business card. The title on the business card was still the sales director of Linyiji. However, Linyiji's main products are grinders and boring and milling machines. As an electronics company, Jiachuan Company has little demand for such products, so Han Weichang's name does not apply here.

A low-level purchasing manager received Han Weichang with a rather perfunctory attitude. But when Han Weichang handed over a few engraving and milling samples of metal casings he brought, the purchasing manager's eyes widened. The purchasing manager took the engraving and milling samples to his department manager, who then reported to the purchasing director. Later, the company's purchasing director and production director brought Han Weichang to Wen Guohui's office.

"This is the sample produced by our engraving and milling machine." Han Weichang replied.

"How long does it take to produce such a sample?" Wen Guohui continued to ask.

"15 minutes." Han Weichang replied. Of course, what he was talking about was the time required for the engraving and milling process. For such a metal piece, a series of operations such as stamping, cutting, and polishing must be done in the early stage. This time is not Han Weichang's responsibility.

"15 minutes..." Wen Guohui muttered.

"Mr. Wen, if one piece takes 15 minutes and we work in three shifts, that's 96 pieces a day. 1,000 units can guarantee at least 1.5 million pieces a month..." Production Director Wang Kun made calculations for Wen Guohui. It is impossible for the production process to be at full capacity. Taking into account factors such as shift changes and machine maintenance, the results calculated by Wang Kun are relatively reliable.

1,000 units…

Han Weichang felt that his heart was beating out of control. Sure enough, these electronics companies are fierce, and their computing production capacity is based on a scale of 1,000 units. The customers that Linyiji served in the past were all machinery companies. Even some large customers would consider it a big order if they bought dozens of machine tools at a time. Who would have such courage to talk about what 1,000 machine tools can do?

No matter how excited he was, there was nothing strange on Han Weichang's face. He showed a humble and confident smile and waited for the other party to speak.

"How long is the service life of a machine tool like yours?"

"The first overhaul shall not be less than 20,000 hours, and the scrap time shall not be less than 40,000 hours."

"How are the routine maintenance going?"

"In normal use, it is enough to shut down the machine for maintenance once a month."

“Can machine tools maintain such machining accuracy?”

"We can guarantee that."

“So, how many of these machine tools can you provide per month?”

"This depends on how many goods Mr. Wen can order." Han Weichang said calmly.

"I understand." Wen Guohui nodded. He understood what Han Weichang said. Han Weichang meant that the current production capacity of Linyi Machinery is not large, but if Jiachuan Company intends to order several thousand units, Linyi Machinery can also increase its production capacity to meet the other party's needs in a short period of time. The question now is just how big an order he wants to place.

"Akun, what do you think?" Wen Guohui turned his head to Wang Kun and asked.

Wang Kun looked at Han Weichang, and then said: "I think we can give it a try. We couldn't take over the batch of products the Koreans asked us to make last time because the metal casing couldn't be done. If this kind of engraving and milling machine can really As Minister Han said, it is easy to use and the work is stable, so we will have no problem accepting that batch of orders."

"But what should we do if Minister Han's engraving and milling machine breaks down?" Wen Guohui said calmly.

"We can sign an agreement. If our products do not meet the requirements, you can return them." Han Weichang said.

Wen Guohui shrugged: "Minister Han, when we sign a contract with a customer, we can't just say that we can't make it. If we receive the customer's order and your machine tool has problems, we will not be able to complete the order. Not only will If we can’t get the money, we have to pay high compensation to our customers. Can you bear these compensations for us?”

"I'm afraid this won't work." Han Weichang said bluntly.

Just kidding, the machine tools produced by Linyi Machinery are used in all walks of life. Some units purchase machine tools to manufacture large-scale equipment. A machine tool costs only a few hundred thousand yuan, and a large-scale equipment is worth hundreds of millions. If there is a problem with the machine tool, the customer must be compensated for all losses, and even a single machine will not be enough to compensate.

Of course Wen Guohui also knew about this problem. He said that just to make a point. The purpose of the argument was naturally to squeeze the most benefits from Han Weichang.

Everyone fell silent. The people in Jiachuan used silence to put pressure on Han Weichang, while Han Weichang was resisting silently. Both parties know that the other party wants to cooperate, but no one wants to be too active to avoid being passive in the negotiation.

Wen Guohui first broke the silence. He asked Procurement Director Li Xuejun: "Xuejun, what do you think?"

Li Xuejun said: "I think Minister Han's equipment still has some merits. What Mr. Wen and Mr. Wang are worried about now is that they don't know the quality of their equipment. Just based on the few items that Minister Han brought over, A sample can’t explain anything.”

At this point, he said no more.

Han Weichang couldn't tell. These people were clearly singing a double act, singing in harmony, waiting for him to express his position. Han Weichang took over Li Xuejun's words and said: "This is also simple. If Jiachuan is really interested, we can provide you with a few pieces of equipment for trial use. If you like it, let's talk about cooperation. If our equipment doesn't work, then there's no need for it. As soon as Mr. Wen opened his mouth, we took the equipment back ourselves, and we never asked Jiachuan to pay a penny."

What several people were waiting for was Han Weichang's words. Wang Kun responded: "This is okay, but how many prototypes can Minister Han provide?"

"How about 3..., 5?" Han Weichang hesitated, stretched out a slap, and said to everyone.

According to the current production volume, the ex-factory price of an engraving and milling machine is about 250,000. Half of this is fixed costs that have been spent, and the variable costs are just over 100,000. If Jiachuan is provided with 5 prototypes, it will cost more than 600,000 yuan. For a potential customer who may purchase 1,000 machine tools, the marketing cost is completely worth it.

What's more, even if the other party does not accept the engraving and milling machine in the end, these five prototypes can still be brought back. They will only be used by the other party for free for a period of time, and the cost will be negligible.

Hearing what Han Weichang said, Wang Kun turned his head to Wen Guohui and asked him for instructions with his eyes. Wen Guohui smiled slightly and said to Han Weichang: "Minister Han, five prototypes are not enough for us. At the very least, we need 100!"