Buying a Lesson

Zhang Yi knew this machine tool's precision could only go so far. Given his factory's current conditions, it simply lacked the ability to carry out large-scale modifications on this batch of machines. Aside from the insufficient precision of many components in the machine tools themselves, the most important issue was their design, compounded by problems with the quality and precision of bearings and other parts. The parts they produced could only be used for the time being. Once the factory had money later on, they would buy high-performance machine tools.

Fortunately, Zhang Yi had only bought three CNC Machines this time. If he had bought them in bulk, he would have nowhere to cry. He could only treat this as paying for a lesson. At the same time, he needed to learn more about machine tools in the future so that this kind of thing would not happen again.

Even so, these CNC Machines still could not manufacture some of the precision parts for the Aerodynamic Bicycle. Those parts had to be made by Xiao Hua and the others using ordinary lathes. Zhang Yi no longer had the money to buy more CNC Machines, so he could only make do for now. After all, without capital, everything was out of the question.

Seeing that the machine tool could now produce the part normally, Zhang Yi finally relaxed. He took out his phone and checked the time, only to find that it was already eleven in the morning—time to get off work. This made him feel rather fortunate. Thankfully, because Huang Jie had gone back and government officials such as the Office Director of the Development Zone were busy, the noon banquet had been canceled. Otherwise, he would have been late.

A few days later, a medium-sized truck slowly drove through the gates of Zhang Yi's Seven Color Stone Mechanical Factory. Besides the driver, the cab also held Zhu Gang, the owner of Xian County Auto Parts Factory. That was right—the truck had come to deliver the parts Zhang Yi had commissioned Zhu Gang to manufacture.

Although Zhu Gang's factory was less than a kilometer away from Zhang Yi's Seven Color Stone Mechanical Factory, with only a road between them, Zhu Gang had still personally delivered this batch of parts. After all, this was his first order from Zhang Yi's factory.

Although there were only around a thousand of each model, there were many different models, so the total quantity was actually quite substantial.

Even so, if it had been an order from a long-term partner, such as an order from Geely Group, such a small quantity would not have required him to come personally. But this time, Zhu Gang had still come himself.

First, the distance was short, so even coming personally would not take much time. Moreover, showing up in person demonstrated his sincerity toward cooperating with Zhang Yi's Seven Color Stone Mechanical Factory.

"Boss Zhang! Have someone inspect them. I've completed all the parts you gave me. But I don't know whether you have any more orders, Boss Zhang. Our factory ordered some more machine tools these past few days, and our production capacity has increased greatly. So, Boss Zhang, I hope your factory can give us more orders in the future." When Zhang Yi arrived beside Zhu Gang's truck, Zhu Gang, who had long been waiting there, spoke up.

"Boss Zhu, I didn't expect you to finish this order so quickly. Although the quantity of each type wasn't large, there were too many complicated models. Even if we processed them ourselves, I wouldn't have been able to complete them in such a short time." After saying this, he turned to Xiao Xia, who had just come out of the workshop. "Xiao Xia! Go check whether this batch of parts meets the standards."

Product quality was crucial to a company's survival, so Zhang Yi naturally took it very seriously. He was not comfortable leaving this matter entirely to others, so he temporarily appointed Xiao Xia as the Product Quality Department Head. Although Xiao Xia ranked at the bottom among the Dwarves, her abilities were more than enough to manage the factory's product quality for the time being.

As Xiao Xia began inspecting the parts, Zhang Yi and Zhu Gang chatted idly. In truth, both of them had already focused all their attention on this batch of goods.

Although Xiao Xia was at the bottom among the Dwarves' top students, in this world, she fully deserved to be called an academic prodigy. She inspected parts extremely quickly; usually, she only needed to pick one up and glance at it a few times to know whether it was qualified.

The inspection was soon finished. Xiao Xia still found several defective parts among the batch, but Zhang Yi did not say much about it. With so many parts, it was impossible for every one of them to be flawless. He could accept one or two unqualified pieces.

"Boss Zhu! The quality of the parts produced by your factory is generally quite good. The scrap rate is around five-thousandths, so there are still some issues you need to pay close attention to. Strive to achieve a one-hundred-percent yield rate in the future." After Xiao Xia finished inspecting them, Zhang Yi had formed an initial impression of Zhu Gang's factory. It seemed he could safely give Zhu Gang orders to process in the future.

Afterward, Zhang Yi gave Zhu Gang some more parts. Of course, these were still non-core components, but their precision requirements were much higher than before.

In Zhang Yi's view, Zhu Gang's factory should be able to manufacture them. In fact, aside from the most crucial precision parts, which Zhu Gang's factory might not be able to process, they should have no major problems with the rest.

After all, Zhu Gang's factory had previously produced parts for Geely Group, so Zhang Yi could imagine that its machine tools must be quite good—at the very least, far superior to the machine tools in his own factory. Zhang Yi even believed that Zhu Gang's factory possessed more advanced machine tools.

After Zhang Yi received this batch of parts, he began arranging for workers to assemble the Aerodynamic Bicycles.

This batch of one thousand bicycles took Zhang Yi's factory nearly fifteen days, from start to finish, to fully manufacture and assemble. This was far slower than Zhang Yi had estimated, but there was nothing he could do about it. The factory only had so few workers, so production efficiency simply could not be raised. Moreover, his factory did not have an assembly line for Aerodynamic Bicycles. At this speed, they were already working very quickly.

In truth, this could not be blamed on Zhang Yi. Naturally, he wanted a production line, but due to funding issues, he could only rely on manual assembly for the time being. Furthermore, in Zhang Yi's and Xiao Hua's view, the bicycle and electric vehicle production lines on the market were simply unsuitable for them.

Those production lines assembled ordinary mass-market products, fundamentally different from the Aerodynamic Bicycles they produced. Even if he bought those production lines, the improvement to the factory's production efficiency would be extremely limited.

Both Zhang Yi and Xiao Hua understood this point clearly, and they unanimously believed that they could only find a way to build their own production line.