Rebirth 2004: I can make money by writing.

Xishan District, Wuxi City, Yadi Electric Motorcycle Company.

R&D Center, A3 Conference Room.

Outside the house, the vegetation was covered with a thin layer of snow, as if the earth was covered with a silver dress.

Indoors, air conditioning and heating keep the cold out and blow away the winter chill.

Despite this, the ten people sitting around the conference table did not feel any warmth at all.

Their mood was like the snow outside, heavy and depressing - because the project they were responsible for was not progressing smoothly, and could even be said to be in trouble.

I worked hard and spent a lot of time, but the results were not satisfactory.

"Everyone, the frame of our future F1 electric motorcycle is made entirely of welded material, with no deformation, and it is not bolted.

Why can't we control the welding deformation well, resulting in deviation of the shaft installation base?

The coaxiality is as high as 1 mm!

This frame welding quality project has been going on for more than half a year, but the results are far from what we expected.”

Project manager Li Bin frowned, his tone filled with fatigue and helplessness.

As he spoke, he opened the Excel worksheet on his computer and listed the problems in the project one by one.

Li Bin is a senior welding engineer of the company with many years of technical experience.

In order to solve the problem of frame welding quality, especially the problem of welding deformation, a special project team was established with the goal of overcoming this technical bottleneck.

The project team members include five welding technicians, one assembly technician, one quality engineer, one structural designer and workshop supervisor.

Everyone has important responsibilities, but at this moment, their faces are full of anxiety and confusion.

At Yadi, the way major technology problems are solved is different from other companies.

Some companies still use the traditional method of "leaders make decisions, departments execute, and then assign tasks to specific persons in charge", while Yadi has borrowed the project management model of Future Technology Group.

In this era, the use of project management in scientific research may only be adopted in large companies, and some large companies do not even adopt project management methods.

In the project team, the project manager is the core and has absolute decision-making power, while the leaders of each department are more responsible for providing resources and support.

Every week, the project team holds a regular meeting where representatives from each process report on work progress, analyze problems and propose solutions.

This management model is more efficient and targeted, and can quickly respond to technical problems.

At the beginning of the project, Mr. Li led the team to conduct a detailed needs analysis and clarified the project's goals and difficulties.

He then selected team members based on project requirements and developed a detailed project milestone and task allocation table.

Each member's time is fully scheduled and task nodes are strictly controlled.

For example, the quality engineer is responsible for compiling PFMEA, collecting production data, and writing 8D reports;

Welding process personnel focus on optimizing welding parameters and process routes;

The structural designer puts forward improvement suggestions from a design perspective and designs tooling and fixtures.

Everyone's work revolves around the same goal: to reduce welding deformation and improve frame quality.

However, despite the project team's tremendous efforts, progress remains slow.

The problem of welding deformation was like an insurmountable mountain standing before them.

The results of each optimization were improved, but did not meet the requirements.

The atmosphere in the conference room was solemn.

Li Bin's eyes swept over each member. He took a deep breath and said slowly, "Don't be discouraged. Although the problem of welding deformation is complicated, it is not unsolvable.

We need to re-examine the problem from multiple angles, including design structure, welding process parameters, and tooling design.

Perhaps we have grasped some key points.”

That being said, when it comes to welding deformation, several welding process technicians do not have the ability to solve the problem.

Ultimately, the core issue still depends on Li Bin to find a solution himself.

They dismantled the frame of Future's F1 electric motorcycle and couldn't figure out how they controlled the welding deformation, and the welding stress was very small, so there was no rebound in the later stage.

If there is deformation rebound, especially at the axle position, the front and rear wheels will be a bit crooked, which will directly affect the driving performance.

When it comes to electric motorcycles, Future Technology Group is in the first echelon, forming a gap with other companies.

Their Yadi company is in the second tier and the quality is still very good.

If it were an ordinary electric motorcycle company, it would just deform as long as it could be driven. But if Yadi Company wants to be the best in the country and make a branded car, it has to control key quality points.

Future Technology Group does not attach much importance to the electric motorcycle industry. Even though sales are booming and supply exceeds demand, they have not expanded production capacity, which gives their peers an opportunity.

Future Technology Group produces 2.3 million electric motorcycles annually, with annual revenue exceeding 10 billion yuan and net profit after tax reaching 2 to 3 billion yuan, with a net profit margin after tax reaching a terrifying 25% or more.

Their company has few problems, a high level of automation, and hot sales, so the annual per capita output value is naturally extremely high.

Yadi Company has an annual sales volume of nearly two million vehicles and an annual revenue of 5 to 6 billion yuan, but its net profit margin after tax is only 10%, and the annual output value per capita is more than 800,000 yuan, which is far from comparable to Future Technology Group.

Apart from anything else, if welding deformation can be controlled, then production capacity will naturally be greatly improved, and the annual output value per capita will of course increase.

For a machinery company, revenue is not the ultimate goal, but profit, especially profit margin.

As long as the profit margin is high, the company can increase marketing, add staff, and increase production capacity, and revenue will naturally increase easily.

But if the profit margin is low, it must be strictly controlled.

Chen Bin, including the members in the room, are all very clear about this.

"I personally feel that our cutting and bending accuracy are relatively poor, resulting in large assembly errors. The weld gap is large, and the welding deformation is naturally larger. If the cutting and bending accuracy are not well controlled, the subsequent processes will be difficult to guarantee." Welding engineer Wang Gong analyzed.

"I understand this logic. Future Technology Group should be able to perform laser cutting, hole cutting and bending in one. I just don't know what brand of laser cutting machine they bought. Their technology is kept so secret that our peers are all guessing how they do it." Li Bin replied.

Yadi does not use laser to cut tubes, but an automatic band saw, which is much better than its peers.

However, the error of automatic band saws is relatively large. For example, when cutting a one-meter-long pipe, the length error may be 0.5 mm.

Processes such as drilling and bending, especially bending, are very difficult to control.

Each batch of materials is slightly different, so the results are different and adjustments have to be made before mass production.

Li Bin also wanted to suggest to the company that they purchase high-quality integrated laser cutting and bending equipment, but that would cost several million yuan, and he estimated that the company would not agree.

I heard that Future Technology Group has a high level of automation, and that is their internal transformation equipment.

Perhaps, after spending several million yuan to purchase equipment, it may not meet the usage requirements and may need to be modified.

As a result, Li Bin didn't dare to make any proposals anymore, as it would not benefit him as he was just an employee.

All the uncertainties make the project progress very difficult.

Outside the window, snowflakes are still falling slowly.

In the conference room, everyone continued to discuss solutions.

They know that only by working together can they overcome the current difficulties.

Only after this technical problem is solved can everyone get the project bonus.

Next, quality engineer Liu produced a detailed PFMEA report, pointing out the potential risks in the welding process: "Based on the data, welding heat input and the stability of the fixture are the main factors affecting deformation.

We still need to further optimize these parameters, especially the welding fixtures.”

Structural designer Lao Chen held a different idea. If he changed the tooling, his workload would be very large, and he might have to redesign the tooling again, which he didn't want to do.

The welding workshop supervisor did not express any opinions, but only cooperated with the trial production arrangements. He did not have to worry about these R&D issues. Instead, he was worried about the production tasks of the workshop. He also had his own work to do.

But he was assigned by his superiors to cooperate with this project, and he had to attend the regular project meetings.

In a project team, everyone has their own ideas. Some people work seriously, while others just do it perfunctorily.

But the project manager definitely wants to solve the problem.

Li Bin carefully recorded the speeches of each member and recorded the meeting minutes.

He knew that solving the welding deformation problem required efforts from many aspects, and any omission in any link might lead to all previous efforts being wasted.

At the end of the meeting, he concluded: "Next, we will start from the following aspects:

First, optimize welding parameters to protect welding strength and fusion, then continue to reduce current and voltage, or increase welding speed to reduce heat input;

Second, improve the design of fixtures to enhance their stability and precision;

Third, continue to optimize blanking and bending to ensure the consistency of parts."

After the meeting, team members returned to their posts and started a new round of experiments and improvements.

Li Bin had not left the meeting room yet. He stood in front of the window, looking at the snowflakes falling outside, and prayed silently in his heart: I hope they can find a breakthrough this time.

They cannot overcome the huge mountain of Future Technology Group.

"Damn it! What on earth did they do? They've made our lives so miserable."

Li Bin cursed.

Future Technology Group doesn't look down on the future electric motorcycle market, but so many motorcycle companies across the country are desperately trying to grab it.

That's right, their automotive division makes hundreds of billions of yuan in profit a year. How could Hao Qiang care about those two or three billion yuan?

Their lithium battery division has an annual profit of several hundred billion yuan.

Also, the chips of Future Technology Group, wow, their future potential is even more terrifying.

Alas, if it were him, the electric motorcycle industry would not catch his eye either.