Sales Preparations

Xu Yifan did not have to wait long before there was a knock on the office door.

"Come in."

After receiving Xu Yifan's permission, a beautiful young woman in her twenties, dressed in a formal business suit, pushed open the door and entered.

"Boss, Manager Zhou from the Production Department is looking for you."

Lin Wanxia, twenty-two, had just graduated from university. She was the secretary Xu Yifan had personally requested, a great beauty carefully selected by the Human Resources Department.

Overall, she was very pleasing to look at when there was nothing to do, which put him in a good mood.

Although her system rating was only two stars, Xu Yifan did not have much work for her anyway. As long as she was pretty and could clearly convey his instructions to the various departments, that was enough.

"Let him in," Xu Yifan said calmly.

The door opened, and a man in his fifties walked in.

Zhou Fengyan's face was full of excitement. "Factory director, the production line has been debugged and can now be put into operation."

"Good. I've been waiting for this day for a long time." Xu Yifan closed the boring game on his computer and stood up.

"This is our factory's first product. Come on, let's take a look."

Leaving the office, the two of them made their way familiarly to the factory workshop.

It was a huge factory building filled with equipment of all sizes. Some employees were currently at their stations, busily screwing in bolts.

Generally speaking, automobile manufacturing was divided into four main processes: stamping, welding, painting, and final assembly.

The first three processes produced the vehicle body, while all systems aside from the body were handled in final assembly.

Jiuzhou Automobile Factory was naturally no exception. The difference was that, unlike major factories that placed each production process in separate buildings, the small-scale Jiuzhou Automobile Factory housed all its production processes in this single plant.

The rectangular factory building was enormous, with the four production processes each occupying one quarter of the space.

After entering through the main gate, the stamping process area and final assembly area were on either side, while the welding process area and painting process area lay farther inside.

The production line as a whole was arranged in a concave shape.

In the stamping process area, stamping equipment and molds worked together to shape sheet-metal parts into the forms required for the body, according to the dimensions and precision planned by the engineers, preparing them for the next welding process.

During this first step, steel sheets of varying sizes went through edge trimming before being distributed to the various stamping machines.

The flat steel sheets were reshaped by the stamping machines and pressed into various stamped body components: fenders, side panels, doors, hoods, and so on.

The individual components were carried by conveyor belts to the next process.

In the welding process area, the various stamped body components were welded together into a complete vehicle body.

Inside the welding workshop, all kinds of body components came together. The key process responsible for this was welding.

The factory was still too small, and the production line equipment was relatively outdated. In this stage, most welding was done manually by workers, with only a small portion handled by machines.

After welding, the body had already taken on the rough shape of a car. Next came the painting process area.

In the painting process area, the body underwent electrophoretic rust prevention treatment. Workers cleaned the body surface and checked for defects.

Bodies with no issues were sent into the spray booth, where robots applied paint before the bodies were baked in the clean room covering the production line.

Once painting was complete, the bodies moved along hooks on the production line into the final stage.

In the final assembly area, workers first assembled vehicle components ordered from suppliers, including suspension links, shock absorbers, brake discs, drive shafts, motors, batteries, and more.

Finally, the chassis fitted with the power system was connected to the body shell transported over from the previous three processes.

After installing the interior, steering wheel, seats, seat belts, wipers, glass, lights, and so on, a brand-new small car was officially produced.

At this time, every worker on the automobile production line had entered working mode, skillfully carrying out their tasks.

On one side of the factory building, two vehicles had already been produced.

They were two white compact cars with small, compact bodies and only two doors.

Other than the dragon-logo badge of Jiuzhou Automobile Factory on the front, they were almost exactly identical to the later Wuling Hongguang Mini!

Arriving beside the two finished vehicles, Xu Yifan carefully got into them and inspected them, confirming that he could not find any problems.

After completing the inspection, Xu Yifan asked Zhou Fengyan beside him, "How is production capacity right now?"

Zhou Fengyan thought for a moment before answering, "The production line has only just started running again, and some of the employees are new. On top of that, this vehicle differs from the cars we produced before, so many workers still aren't very proficient. At present, we can only produce around ten units a day.

"However, after another period of adjustment, production capacity can still be increased.

"Generally speaking, this automobile production line can produce around ten thousand units a year.

"Under normal conditions, it can produce more than thirty vehicles a day. If we work overtime, output can be raised further."

Xu Yifan calculated it over and nodded. "Around ten units a day at the beginning should be enough.

"Start full production now, and keep going until the remaining three million yuan in the company account is no longer enough to cover production costs."

Zhou Fengyan said, "Understood."

"Oh, right. Roughly how much does each product cost?" Although Xu Yifan could easily see it through the system, he still asked.

"In terms of manufacturing costs, because the body is small and there are basically no R&D expenses, the low-spec version costs around seventeen thousand yuan in total.

"It will be a little higher at the start. As production volume increases, after costs are spread out, it should drop by another one or two thousand yuan."

A product's expenses did not consist solely of manufacturing costs. There were also the salaries of more than a hundred factory employees, the costs of purchasing, maintaining, and operating equipment, and so on.

According to the system's calculations, each vehicle needed to sell for a little over nineteen thousand yuan just to avoid losses. To make a profit, the price would have to be raised further!

"Now that the product has been manufactured, the Sales Department should get busy next."

After saying goodbye to Zhou Fengyan, who was responsible for production, Xu Yifan returned to the office building with Lin Wanxia.

He instructed Lin Wanxia to call everyone from the Sales Department to the conference room for a meeting, then sat down in a chair in the conference room to wait.

Lin Wanxia clicked away in her high heels, swaying her waist as she left.

Soon, the ten employees from the Sales Department entered the conference room.

In the conference room, Xu Yifan sat at the head of the table and asked the employees below, "Our company's new energy vehicle, the Jiuzhou Mini, will officially go on sale tomorrow. The price will follow the previous pricing plan, starting at 21,999 yuan for the lowest-spec version. What sales strategies do you have?"

When it came to his professional work, Ji Shenghai, the sales manager who had been idle for a long time and had prepared everything for sales, gave a detailed account of the department's general plan.

"We have thoroughly familiarized ourselves with the company's product and are very confident about sales!"

"According to the previous plan, the company's directly operated stores have already been renovated. Once the product is manufactured, they can be put into use immediately."

"At the start, we need to build awareness and let people know we are selling this product.

"As you instructed, Boss, our sales staff will drive our vehicles in convoys through the streets throughout the city every day.

"They will slowly drive around areas with more pedestrians, with speakers installed on the roofs to continuously broadcast relevant sales information.

"Then, we will offer test rides and test drives to interested consumers, allowing them to experience our product on closed roads under the guidance of sales staff..."

Ji Shenghai, the Sales Department manager, had only recently been recruited into the company's Sales Department through the Human Resources Department. He was thirty-seven years old and a Three-star talent!

After a long while, Ji Shenghai finished reporting on the sales work they had prepared.

Only then did Xu Yifan nod in agreement. "Very good. Proceed according to this plan."

Following the system's evaluation and Xu Yifan's review, every department in the factory was staffed with experienced hands.

The Sales Department was naturally no exception. While there was nothing especially outstanding about it, neither were there any particularly serious shortcomings.