The Art of Quoting 110 (Next chapter will be uploaded soon)

  The last chapter before going online, it will be online at noon. Is everyone's monthly vote ready?

  This meal was a great harvest for both Hanhua Factory and Hanhua Industrial Company, each reaping their own benefits. The group returned to Fenghua County and immediately began making vigorous preparations for a big push.

  Unfortunately, Nihon Heavy Industries didn't know that they opened a Pandora's box on the main shaft, and as a result, an order worth over $300 million disappeared. As for large-scale fertilizer equipment, it's hard to say whether there is any intellectual property involved. After all, the principle of fertilizer production is public knowledge, and in terms of equipment, it's just some tanks and vessels plus a few main machines.

  So-called tank tanks, in industrial terms, are pressure vessels. The standard for pressure vessels required for fertilizer production is not high, that is, ordinary second-class containers, which can be manufactured by many domestic enterprises. After Hanhua Factory completed the submerged arc welding process, it also completed other certifications and has now obtained the design and manufacturing license for second-class containers, which can fully independently undertake the manufacture of pressure vessels in this equipment.

  The host is the part of this equipment that is more difficult to produce in China. At first, the Light Industry Department chose to import this equipment from Japan because it couldn't find a domestic factory that could manufacture these hosts. Of course, there are also some domestic factories with stronger mechanical processing capabilities, but they belong to other systems. Enterprises like this large cow level have very busy production tasks and cannot accept such small orders.

  If it weren't for the exorbitant prices of Nihon Kikai Heavy Industries, forcing Hanhua Factory to produce such a main shaft with almost half-manual processing methods, perhaps Qinghua Hall would not have bothered to produce this equipment on its own. Now that the main shaft is done, looking back, it seems that Japanese technology is nothing special after all; we can still reach the doorway by tiptoeing.

  More than $3 million is not a small amount of money, if it can be saved, it would be a great achievement, and it would be praised by the provincial planning commission and economic commission. As for saying that with a price of $300,000 to package it to Hanhua Machinery Factory for production, the leaders of the Light Industry Department also know that the profit must be very substantial, but the leaders do not care about this, for enterprises that dare to take on heavy responsibilities, giving some benefits is nothing. Let's calculate, more than $3 million, equivalent to about 6 million RMB, our enterprise can do it with $300,000, who else can say anything?

  A 30 million yuan equipment order has fallen into the lap of Hanhua Factory, which is like a windfall. The factory's annual output value in previous years was only around 20-30 million yuan. In recent years, due to national policy adjustments and the emergence of competitive township enterprises, state-owned enterprises have been struggling, with widespread underproduction at mechanical enterprises under the Light Industry Bureau, resulting in so-called "policy-based losses". Although Hanhua Factory's annual production targets are still guaranteed, it is extremely difficult for them to retain some surplus funds to award bonuses or build houses.

  In this case, getting a production task of 3 million with extremely high profit margin is like a beggar picking up a gold ingot and making a fortune for Hanhua Factory. The Production Department and Technical Department made an initial estimate that they could get the equipment at most for 1.5 million, which means Hanhua Factory can make a profit of 1.5 million.

  15 million! In those days, it was a staggering sum of money.

  Director Chen Weiguo was so excited that he wished to stand at the factory gate and shout to everyone: Are there year-end bonuses? Are there double pay rewards for the Lunar New Year's Eve? Is there a dormitory building for employees? In front of 1.5 million, all these are just trivial matters!

  The factory passed a resolution, after the prepayment for the equipment arrived, to immediately start building 3 dormitory buildings, each with 3 units, 6 floors, which can provide a total of 108 suites. After the 108 households moved into their new homes, the houses they vacated could be reassigned to other families who were unable to get a unit house. In this way, the housing conditions for all factory employees would be greatly improved.

  The news of the housing distribution spread quickly throughout the factory, and all the workers were counting on their fingers to see if they had a chance to get an apartment. Some families have already started planning to buy furniture and appliances after moving into new houses, while others are thinking about their children's marriages. The whole factory is filled with a joyful atmosphere.

  Among all the people, only Fan Shibin had a gloomy face. Since returning from the second fertilizer plant, he had been sighing every day, which made Lin Zhenhua feel heartbroken when he heard it.

  "Old Fan, why did I hear you sigh again?" Lin Zhenhua finally couldn't help but ask Fan Shiben.

  Fan Shiben said, "It's all because of you, the equipment is clearly worth 2 million, but you insisted on quoting a price of 3 million. The factory director said that we need to make it look like 2.98 million, how am I supposed to report that?"

  "Old Fan, you don't think there's too much money and it's too tiring to count?"

  "It's really tiring. You see, material costs, labor costs, electricity bills, water bills... I've been calculating for half a day and just barely reached 2 million, still short of 980,000, how am I supposed to calculate?"

  "Let me take a look." Lin Zhenhua took over the budget sheet from Fan Shibin's hand and began to review it item by item.

  It turns out that the quotation of this equipment is also particular, and it's not something you can just blurt out casually. Nihong Heavy Industry can quote a price of $30,000 for a single axle, but Hanhua Machinery Factory cannot do so. As a state-owned enterprise, you cannot make money at the expense of the country, so the quotation of equipment must be within a reasonable range. This reasonable range is the cost plus a certain percentage of profit, and every penny must be accounted for.

  Fan Shiben is a down-to-earth person, and the budget table he made was very ordinary. Every part of the materials and labor hours were calculated clearly. The main axle cost 3000 yuan, which already made him feel ashamed. From his point of view, even 300 yuan would have been a profit, it's just a few old workers doing two days' work...

  "Come on, Old Fan, 3,000 yuan for processing the ice machine's main shaft?" Lin Zhenhua said disdainfully.

  "Right, Xiao Lin, you think this is not quite right?" Fan Shibin said nervously.

  "Not very good indeed."

  Fan Shiben let out a sigh and said: "Then I'll change it back, I also think this is too detrimental to the country. How about changing it to 1000 yuan, isn't that better?"

  "Let's make it 10,000 yuan," said Lin Zhenhua.

  "10,000 yuan!" Fan Shibin jumped up like a cat whose tail had been stepped on. In the year or so since Lin Zhenhua came to the technical department, Fan Shibin's number of surprises and shocks was more than the total of the past few decades, to the point where it had become a conditioned reflex.

  Lin Zhenhua said: "Of course, I think it's even lower than that."

  "Kobayashi, don't talk nonsense. Look at the craftsmanship, isn't it just mold forging, rough machining, and heat treatment? I've calculated the working hours for each item, and even if I exaggerate several times, it's only worth around 3000 yuan. If you calculate it to be 10,000 yuan, what can the Light Industry Bureau do?"

  Lin Zhenhua glared and said: "Old Fan, don't you have a conscience? I drew so many diagrams with Old Hu, calculated so many curves, didn't we work hard?"

  "Hmm... That makes sense, but how many man-hours will that take?" Fan Shibin hesitated.

  "Knowledge is priceless, old Fan." Lin Zhenhua said, "Let me tell you a story. In the past, there was a factory whose motor broke down and they found an engineer to fix it. The engineer arrived and drew a line on the motor, saying 'disassemble from this point, the inside is burnt out, replace the wires inside and it will be fine.' Later, the engineer asked the factory for $10,000 as the repair fee. The factory was very puzzled, saying 'you just drew a line and you're charging us $10,000?' Guess what the engineer said?"

  "What did he say?" asked Fan Shibin.

  "He said, drawing a line costs $1; knowing where to draw it is $9999."

  Fan Shibo nodded: "What you said makes some sense, but the current regulations in our country are like this. If you can't calculate working hours, you can't calculate money."

  Lin Zhenhua said: "Just write it down, calculate the cutting curve, 2000 working hours, 5 yuan per hour, a total of 10,000 yuan."

  "Only 2,000 working hours, Xiao Lin, you and Old Hu haven't worked for that long, have you?"

  Lin Zhenhua said, "Okay, whoever thinks it's not worth 2,000 working hours, let him calculate it himself. I really don't believe it, let the Light Industry Department call those people from the Chemical Design Institute, and see if they can calculate it out with 2,000 working hours."

  Joking, Lin Zhenhua and Hu Yang are both high-level technical talents, especially Hu Yang, who is simply a heaven-defying existence. He can do in one hour what ordinary technicians need at least 10 hours to accomplish. Moreover, they have the APPLE-II supercomputer, while the Institute of Chemical Design seems not to have even been equipped with computers yet.

  Fan Shibo seemed to understand a bit and asked, "Little Lin, do you mean that sometimes we can exaggerate a bit about the working hours, so the total cost can be calculated?"

  Lin Zhenhua said, "That's right. Old Fan, you're also someone who has drunk with me before, how can't you understand what Director Xie means? She clearly said that this is the opinion of the hall leaders, as long as our quotation form is written flawlessly, the hall will not re-calculate it at all. This is new equipment, and some processing techniques are also brand new, who can pick out any flaws?"

  "But what if we can't use that many man-hours when the time comes?" Fan Shibin thought of another new problem, the actual working hours used in the workshop will eventually be entered into the account book, and it is impossible to fake.

  Lin Zhenhua said lightly, "That's even better. Look, Hanhua Machinery Factory has made great technological innovations and increased production efficiency several times. In the production of certain equipment, we have saved a lot of working hours, which has saved the country a lot of money... Maybe the Light Industry Department will give us an award for saving energy."

  "Alright, I understand." Fan Shibin was overjoyed and grabbed the budget table to run back to his office to make changes. The difficult problem that had been troubling him for many days was finally solved by Lin Zhenhua, and Fan Shibin felt a weight lift off his shoulders, his waist no longer sore, his legs no longer painful, and even calculating hundreds of working hours didn't feel tiring anymore.

  Lin Zhenhua looked at Fan Shiben's back and couldn't help but sigh:

  "Alas, another honest person nurtured by a planned economy has been led astray by me."