King Material Company Is Somewhat Bewildered

Five million sheets—an enormous figure.

For a delivery plan involving such a massive quantity, the plan basically had to be provided to King Material Company half a year in advance, with both sides reaching an agreement on when deliveries would begin, how much would be delivered each month, and even the exact daily delivery quantities.

Five million sheets were enough to keep two or three production lines steadily manufacturing this one product alone for around a year.

This was the model for working with every company. Just because you were the customer did not mean you could do whatever you wanted.

For suppliers, they had to know the delivery schedule in order to prepare materials, because they had suppliers of their own, and those suppliers also needed time to deliver to them. Every link was connected to the next.

This was even more true for King Material Company. The plan had to be provided half a year in advance; otherwise, they could just wait for their goods.

King Material Company's polymer optical films had never lacked orders. Their order queue stretched so far no one knew how long it was. Others had always been the ones negotiating with them politely; they had never needed to negotiate politely with anyone else.

The Oupai K9 Series Models—from the K9 to the K9S, K9 mini, K9 Pro, K9 max, K9 Pro max, and so on—all used the same set of product molds. From the glass and motherboard to the casing, battery, screen, and more, the differences lay only in the performance of those materials—for example, different grades of chips, memory, batteries, displays, cameras, and so forth—but the mold dimensions were identical.

At the start of the K9 project, Zhong Wei Technology and Oupai Company had jointly finalized the optical materials, choosing King Polymer Optical Film. Trial production validation and the current large-scale mass production had all gone smoothly.

Thus, based on Oupai Company's delivery schedule for Zhong Wei Technology, Zhong Wei Technology had also provided its delivery schedule to King Material Company. The delivery plan for the entire year had been arranged, with a total of ten million sheets set, subject to later increases or reductions depending on Oupai's order volume.

Now, Zhong Wei Technology had abruptly canceled the entire delivery plan for five million sheets due one month later. In other words, all subsequent orders had been cut.

Five million sheets meant sales revenue of twenty to thirty million, not to mention the even larger orders that would follow.

This move by Zhong Wei Technology directly left King Company bewildered. Wang Yanfeng, the domestic General Manager who had received the news, even spat out the mouthful of tea he had just swallowed.

"What is going on?"

Wang Yanfeng was startled. The news was both sudden and serious.

Once the report reached higher-ups, he would inevitably be subjected to a fierce scolding from King Company's headquarters.

Wang Yanfeng hurriedly asked, "Did they give any reason?"

The Sales Manager said with a grim expression, "I asked Zhong Wei's procurement department, but they wouldn't say. They only said it was a decision from upper management. I made some further inquiries, but I still don't know which Zhong Wei executive gave the order."

"A decision from upper management?"

The moment Wang Yanfeng heard that, he immediately knew the matter was serious.

But after thinking it over, Wang Yanfeng recalled that the Oupai K9 Series Models had been widely praised since launch, and there had been no feedback of any quality issues with the optical materials. Moreover, just last month, because the K9 models were selling so well, Oupai Company had sent King Material Company a letter of commendation praising the excellent performance of its materials and calling King Material Company an outstanding Oupai supplier.

Since it was not a quality issue, then it naturally had to be something unrelated to the product itself.

Sometimes, even if a product performed well, that did not necessarily mean others would use it. If they had failed to build the right connections or offended some important person on the client's side, a good partnership could suddenly turn hostile.

However, King Material Company had never encountered such a precedent. Why? Because of the golden nameplate that was "King Material." Others begged to use King Material; King Material did not beg others to use it.

Wang Yanfeng immediately felt indignant. This was the first time someone had slapped them in the face. How could he possibly tolerate it?

Wang Yanfeng immediately made a call directly to the phone of Luo Zhongwei, the owner of Zhong Wei Technology. "Chairman Luo, this is Wang Yanfeng from King Material. Your company wants to cancel the five-million-sheet order for the Oupai K9 Series Models from us. I wonder whether you know about this?"

Luo Zhongwei had naturally received Chen Xi's report long ago, and he had long anticipated King Material Company's reaction. Therefore, he was not particularly surprised by Wang Yanfeng's angry phone call questioning him.

"Director Wang, is there such a thing? I don't know about it. Let me check."

Luo Zhongwei responded with feigned surprise, then claimed he was unaware of the matter. Yet inwardly, he was already furious. A bunch of dogs! Once the material replacement is complete, you'll be in for it!

After saying that, he could not even be bothered with further pleasantries and quickly hung up.

"So it was Luo Zhongwei's doing!"

Wang Yanfeng looked grimly at his phone as the lingering beeps sounded. He misunderstood the situation, believing that the crux of the matter lay with Luo Zhongwei, Zhong Wei Technology's boss.

Luo Zhongwei's attitude could not help but make him misunderstand. What did he mean by "let me check"? That was the kind of excuse used to fool children. What he really meant was, I gave the order, and it can't be changed, so stop whining.

Seeing that he was only a spark away from exploding, the Sales Manager did not dare make a sound.

Not long afterward, after a brief moment of thought, Wang Yanfeng called Li Dingguo, Oupai's head of product.

When dealing with Li Dingguo, Wang Yanfeng no longer had the arrogance he had displayed when calling Luo Zhongwei. With a warm smile, he said, "Hello, President Li, it's me, Wang Yanfeng from King Material. Sorry to disturb your rest! It's like this: doesn't your company's K9 Series use King Polymer Optical Film for its optical materials? I'd like to ask about the follow-up orders for the K9 Series, so I can arrange the necessary preparations for future supply on my end."

"Orders? I don't know about that. I haven't asked about this project in a long time. Why don't you ask someone from our sales department?"

Li Dingguo's calm voice came through the phone.

There was no explicit meaning in his words, yet anyone could understand the clear sense of rejection conveyed between the lines.

"All right, thank you, President Li. Then I won't disturb your rest any longer."

Ending the very brief call with a smile, Wang Yanfeng's heart sank. He thought, With Li Dingguo's attitude, this order cancellation is going to be difficult to handle. Zhong Wei Technology must have spoken with Oupai in advance.

As the head of product, how could Li Dingguo possibly not know the order situation for a bestselling model like the K9?

Since Li Dingguo had said that, Zhong Wei Technology had clearly notified Oupai beforehand, so naturally he was brushing him off.

After putting down the phone, Wang Yanfeng asked the Sales Manager, "For this model, is Zhong Wei Technology conducting validation on other materials? Or have they switched to highly transparent glass materials and replaced King Polymer Optical Film?"

The Sales Manager answered cautiously, "I've been following this project's developments at Zhong Wei Technology, but I haven't heard that they switched to any other glass materials."

A screen's brightness depended on both the brightness of light reflected by the optical materials and the material of the glass. The more transparent the glass, the higher the brightness naturally became. This was determined by the properties of light transmission.

It was not impossible to use highly transparent glass together with lower-brightness optical materials to replace the combination of lower-transparency glass and King Polymer Optical Film.

For the moment, that was the only reason Wang Yanfeng could think of.

Listening to his subordinate's response, Wang Yanfeng thought for a while but could not come up with any good solution. He could only say, "Look into this. I have a feeling something isn't right."