Sail across the sea

After introducing the people in the meeting room to Bob, Gao Fan announced that the meeting will enter the second topic, which is also the core content of today's meeting, which is the issue of vitamin E production.

Liao Derong, who was promoted by FireWire to be the chief engineer of the vitamin factory, walked to the front, hung a few blueprints on the wall, and began to introduce them to everyone:

"To produce vitamin E by synthetic method, firstly, the raw materials trimethylhydroquinone and isophytol are added to the storage tank for mixing ingredients, then introduced into the condensation reactor, dehydrated with a dehydrating agent, and then condensed to form vitamin E.

"Subsequently, solvent recovery is required, the reactant is extracted, and then esterified with acetic anhydride, sent to a washing tank for washing, solvent recovery is performed again, distillation and separation are performed, and finally the finished product is obtained through filtration.

"According to this process, the equipment needed includes storage tanks, condensation reactors, transfer pumps, solvent recovery towers, extraction tanks, esterification tanks, water washing tanks, rectification towers, and filters. These are the specific parameters of various equipment ..."

The preparation process of vitamin E is not complicated, and the amount of equipment required is not much, which is why Gaofan chose vitamin E as a product.It's just that he didn't expect that the equipment of more than 100 million yuan is still considered a big investment in today's China, so big that even the Chemical Industry Department dare not agree, so that he had to go to the Spring Fair to get money .

"I went to the provincial chemical machinery factory to find out about these equipments. Some equipment they couldn't manufacture, such as the condensation reactor, Lao Liao said that it must be made of high-strength stainless steel. The chemical machinery factory said that one is high-strength Stainless steel is in short supply and may need to be imported, and the other is that argon arc welding is needed to weld this stainless steel, and they don’t have the technology in this area, so they can’t take over.”

After Liao Derong introduced the production process, Gu Kunquan went on to introduce the purchase of equipment.

These days when Gao Fan went to participate in the Spring Fair, Gu Kunquan and the others were not idle. The matters related to the research and development of production technology and the ordering of equipment were gradually advancing, but the latter task could only stay at the In the inquiry stage, I dare not sign the final contract with the machinery factory.

"How many parts can Maohua make?" Gao Fan asked.

Gu Kunquan said: "I showed the list of equipment listed by Lao Liao to their chief engineer, and he said that they can make about [-]% of them. But because he hasn't seen the detailed requirements, he dare not Say hell."

"How long is the manufacturing cycle?" Gao Fan asked again.

Gu Kunquan smiled bitterly: "He said it would take at least a year, and it also depends on whether they have other production tasks."

"Yang Jinglin is coaxing ghosts." Gao Yiping said disdainfully, "Their production tasks have not been saturated in the past two years, and they have suffered policy losses for two consecutive years. How dare he say such a thing."

The Yang Jinglin he was talking about was the chief engineer of Maohua Machinery.Because they both belonged to the chemical industry system in the province, Gao Yiping and him knew each other, and even had some personal friendships.However, when it comes to such inter-factory conflicts of interest, Gao Yiping will not have a good attitude.

Gu Kunquan glanced at Bob who was sitting next to him, hesitated a little, and finally sighed, and said, "What can I do? Now many state-owned enterprises in the province are like this, complaining all day long, saying that township enterprises have robbed them. business, they don’t reflect on whether there is a problem with their service attitude.”

The situation that Gu Kunquan mentioned is a common problem in state-owned enterprises nowadays.In the era of planned economy, state-owned enterprises produced according to the state's mandatory plan, so they didn't have to worry about the supply of raw materials and product sales.Because the market is generally in a state of shortage, the manufacturer belongs to the emperor's daughter without worrying about marrying, that is, he has developed a style of official businessman.

In recent years, the state's policies have been loosened, and a number of township and large collective enterprises have emerged in various places.These enterprises are small in scale and their technical level is far inferior to that of state-owned enterprises, but their service attitude is good, and they really regard customers as gods.

In this way, some customers are willing to hand over products with low technical content and quality requirements to township enterprises. Apart from enjoying the treatment of being Party A, the purchase price can also have a relatively obvious drop. Why not?
Of course, the customer's purchasing personnel will not say that the main reason they choose township enterprises to order is that they can give kickbacks.

These low-tech products have low profit margins, but the quantity is not small, and they used to be the main products of state-owned enterprises.These products are diverted, and the production tasks of state-owned enterprises are not enough, so the problem of so-called "policy losses" has generally appeared.

It stands to reason that your factory has already run out of production tasks, and someone has sent an order of millions, why don't you hurry up?

But things are so irritating.Gu Kunquan took the order to the Provincial Chemical Machinery Factory and went directly to Chief Engineer Yang Jinglin.Yang Jinglin saw that it was all equipment that had never been made in the factory before, so he shook his head like a rattle, emphasizing a lot of objective reasons. If it was finally released, it would be fine for them to accept the order. There is no room for negotiation in terms of price, delivery time, quality, etc., and they have to follow their requirements.

The reasons behind this are complex.Generally speaking, the mechanism of most state-owned enterprises is still very rigid at present, and more work does not get more money, so everyone's mentality is that one thing more is worse than one thing less.

Most of the vitamin E production equipment are relatively common chemical pressure vessels, which can be undertaken by Maohua Machinery.However, because the specifications are different from the fertilizer equipment that Maohua Machinery used to make more easily, some additional equipment needs to be built. The engineers of Maolin Chemical Machinery Factory are not very interested in this, so it is understandable.

This situation did not exceed the expectations of Gu Kunquan and Gao Yiping, and it was even expected by Gao Fan.Gu Kunquan just said it more euphemistically, mainly because he was concerned about foreign guests at the scene, and some family ugliness could not be publicized.However, Gao Fan didn't seem to regard Bob as an outsider, so Gu Kunquan no longer concealed it.

"The situation you are talking about is explained by Korney in his "Shortage Economics". In a market lacking competition, such a situation will inevitably occur." Bob noticed the way Gu Kunquan looked at him, and came out Sound commented.

Korner is an economist in Hungary. In his book "Shortage Economics", he has a very in-depth discussion of the planned economic system in Eastern Europe.Bob, a Harvard student, is not in vain. He has actually read this book that has only been published for two years.

Gao Fan has never read this book, and he does not want to discuss such academic issues.He said to the crowd: "I thought about it, since Maohua Machinery can't get some equipment off, and other equipment is reluctant to do it, why don't we just import it from abroad.

"Hatch Group promised us to invest 150 million US dollars, and the money will be invested in the form of equipment and raw materials, so there is no need to go around the country."