The Fiery Era: Becoming an Industrial Giant

Chapter 21 Highly Recommends the Person in Charge

The next morning, Zhou Zhiqiang got up early and went out to buy breakfast.

Having resolved the issues within the original owner's family, he felt as if a dumbbell had been lifted from his heart, and his whole body felt extremely relaxed.

After buying two bowls of fried liver and two crispy sesame cakes in the morning, Zhou Zhiqiang returned home and had a good meal with Guo Yuting.

Zhou Zhiqiang wouldn't compromise his own well-being, and Guo Yuting hadn't yet developed a frugal nature, so the two of them usually ate quite well.

Moreover, Zhou Zhiqiang has already begun to slowly accumulate grain. He goes to the pigeon market every month to save up eight or nine catties of fine grain.

Two years later, they will not only have their own ration, but also an extra two or three hundred catties of fine grain to eat. Even if the ration is reduced again, Zhou Zhiqiang and Guo Yuting will be able to get through it.

After breakfast, Zhou Zhiqiang and his wife set off for work.

It took Zhou Zhiqiang half an hour to reach Dafeng Machinery Factory.

After arriving at the factory, Zhou Zhiqiang put aside all other thoughts and focused on the factory's production tasks.

After the public-private partnership, although large-scale planned production began, the factory still had some autonomy in development outside of the plan.

After all, factories need to be profitable, and the Ministry of Machine Building could not possibly be responsible for scheduling all factories to be fully occupied with production tasks.

After completing the production tasks assigned by the state, if there is spare time, they can also develop on their own.

At the end of the year, whether workers can get extra bonuses depends on how well the factory performs.

At this point, their technical department took on a slightly heavier responsibility; developing new technologies, improving production processes, and so on—basically, cleaning up the nest to attract outside chickens to lay eggs in their nest.

Of course, the higher-ups wouldn't deliberately make things difficult for the technical department; they wouldn't assign them tasks they couldn't complete.

However, for technological and process innovations, a task must be submitted once a year, or sometimes once every six months.

At other times, the technical department is responsible for providing technical guidance to the factory.

The production of agricultural machinery parts at YTO Group has also gotten back on track. With the technical department providing guidance for so many days, the defect rate has gradually decreased.

To be fair, their Dafeng Machinery Manufacturing Plant was quite capable, and the Municipal Bureau of Industry had put in a lot of effort to establish it, but now it has slowly fallen to the status of a 'contract manufacturer'.

It's not that contract manufacturing is bad; there aren't many heavy industry factories in the country now, and Dafeng Machinery Factory is quite well-known in this field.

However, after gaining fame, the companies that came to them were all contract manufacturers of mechanical parts, and their own factory didn't have anything particularly noteworthy to offer.

Moreover, the benefits of contract manufacturing are minimal. Even if you work yourself to the bone all year round, the year-end bonus you receive is not much.

Thinking about this, Zhou Zhiqiang slapped his forehead. He had really been thinking too far ahead. He wasn't even the head of the technical department yet, and he was already worrying about the factory's development path.

Let's talk about it after the level is raised.

Zhou Zhiqiang is currently a technician who has not yet been formally appointed. If he wants to adjust the factory's production direction, he will have to wait until he becomes a formally appointed deputy head of the technical department.

Otherwise, he would have no say in the factory's production direction.

Although the factory was owned by the whole people, the workers were in charge of production and the cadres were in charge of the direction; this was basically a fixed system.

—————— As noon approached, Zhou Zhiqiang was organizing the production plan in his hands when Section Chief Lü suddenly walked in from outside.

Arriving at Zhou Zhiqiang's desk, he immediately said, "Xiao Zhou, come with me. Someone wants to see you."

"Someone wants to see me? Who is it?"

Before he could finish speaking, Zhou Zhiqiang realized what he meant and asked, "Section Chief, is it Professor Zhang Deli?"

"You know, it seems it really was you who caused this commotion."

After saying this with a smile, Section Chief Lü quickly added, "Come with me to Deputy Factory Director Liu's office. Professor Zhang and Deputy Factory Director Liu are both waiting for you."

Upon hearing this, Zhou Zhiqiang immediately put the documents on the table into the drawer, then got up and followed Section Chief Lü to Deputy Factory Director Liu's office.

On the way, Zhou Zhiqiang whispered to Section Chief Lü, "Section Chief, it might be about the materials and processes I mentioned to you last time. But I wasn't confident about this on my own, so I went to consult Professor Zhang Deli."

As you know, my father-in-law graduated from Beijing Institute of Technology, and I also graduated from there. I originally wanted to ask Professor Zhang for some guidance, but I didn't expect him to come to me in person.

Explaining this was also to prevent Section Chief Lü from overthinking things.

Upon hearing this, Section Chief Lü nodded and said to Zhou Zhiqiang with a smile, "This is actually a good thing. If it were just a request from our factory, the Second Steel Rolling Mill might not have paid any attention to it."

Even if Deputy Factory Director Liu intervened, it would be a bit risky, since he also has production quotas to meet, and the steelmakers are much busier than the steelworkers right now. But with Professor Zhang involved, it's different; the second rolling mill will have to give Professor Zhang some face, more or less.

The Second Steel Rolling Mill was directly under the Ministry, and its Party Secretary was at the eleventh level. Their Dafeng Machinery Factory was under the Municipal Bureau of Industry, and its Party Secretary was at the thirteenth level, two levels lower.

It's roughly equivalent to the difference between a full-fledged department head and a deputy director-general.

Whether Deputy Factory Director Liu can persuade the other party on his own depends on how much effort he is willing to put in.

However, now that there is a professor from an industrial university, the persuasiveness is much greater; many factories rely on these professors and scholars for process reforms, and with Zhang Deli taking the lead, the success rate is basically 99%.

The two arrived at Deputy Factory Director Liu's office and found Zhang Deli and Deputy Factory Director Liu chatting happily.

Upon seeing Zhou Zhiqiang enter, Zhang Deli pointed at him and said, "Deputy Factory Director Liu, Zhiqiang is the developer of this alloy material process. I've also studied it with a few friends, and it does indeed have a high success rate."
If a joint task force is to be formed, I suggest Zhou Zhiqiang be put in charge, because no one understands better than him how to improve the new material process.

Then, Zhang Deli turned to Zhou Zhiqiang and said, "Zhiqiang, I was just talking to Comrade Fuhua about this. We definitely need to set up a joint team for the reform of this alloy material process."

I hope you will be the leader of this group. After all, this technological achievement is your work, and frankly, I don't think there's any need to make any changes before the results of the process innovation are available.”

Zhou Zhiqiang had just entered the house when he received such a generous gift, leaving him somewhat taken aback.

However, Zhou Zhiqiang quickly said, "Professor, if a joint task force is really established, it would be more suitable for you to be the person in charge. I'm too young; I've only been working for less than a year."

“Hey, building a country doesn’t care about age. If you’re capable, then go for it. Why are you shirking such a simple task?”

Zhang Deli waved his hand and spoke to Zhou Zhiqiang, while also addressing Liu Fuhua, the deputy factory director.

How many materials are needed to create a new technology? And how tight are our country's steel resources right now?
To be frank, it can't withstand any more disruption. If it were someone else, it would take them a long time just to fully understand this new process, and if a mistake were to occur, it would be a huge waste.

(End of this chapter)