97: The challenges facing the Luhai Volkswagen plant

Luhai City.

Skyscrapers stood tall, stretching as far as the eye could see.

Even though it was 1995, this international city was already showing the nascent signs of an economic hub.

The streets were bustling with people and traffic.

On the sidewalks, passersby were dressed in fashionable clothes, showcasing the trendy personalities of young people.

At this moment.

West of Luhai City.

Inside the director's office of the Luhai Volkswagen Automobile Factory.

Lu Weimin, the director of the automobile manufacturing plant, was half-reclining in his chair, rubbing his eyes.

As the director of Luhai City's largest automobile production plant, Lu Weimin had a great many things to deal with.

And just now.

He had seen a troubling email in his inbox.

This email was from the product manager.

This was due to his recent announcement of a plan to modify and optimize the car's structure to provide users with a better experience.

As a result.

The product manager had spent the night gathering a lot of user feedback.

Then.

He used this feedback as the focus for the car's optimization and modification.

But within two days.

The product manager discovered that some of these feedback points were simply impossible to achieve with their current technical capabilities.

The most important of these was the issue of processing and optimizing certain car parts.

Their factory's technical capabilities were simply insufficient to support the manufacturing of these parts.

So.

The product manager sent this problem to his inbox in the form of an email.

At this moment.

Lu Weimin was feeling a headache over the content of this email.

“Are our factory's technical capabilities really that weak?

Can't we even process some small parts?

If this problem cannot be solved, how can we improve our cars and enhance the user experience?

This problem must be solved.

If even this problem cannot be solved, in this rapidly changing era, our factory's cars will eventually be eliminated!”

Just thinking about this problem.

He felt a surge of frustration.

At present, he indeed had no good way to solve this problem.

If the parts couldn't be processed, then they could only choose an OEM factory.

However.

Given the current level in the country, which factory could have stronger technical capabilities than theirs?

“Forget it, forget it. I'll ask the boss later to see if he has any connections in this area.

If it still doesn't work.

Then we'll just have to spend a lot of money to outsource the car parts from abroad.”

Lu Weimin simply stopped thinking about this annoying problem.

He casually picked up a weekly magazine from his desk.

He had bought this weekly magazine from an outdoor newsstand on his way to the factory, just to pass the time when he was bored.

Who would have thought that as soon as he arrived, the factory would encounter such a thorny problem?

Anyway, the problem couldn't be solved for now.

He might as well read the newspaper and relax.

“Huh? Breaking news? And with such prominent red bold letters, do news agencies nowadays all love to grab attention so much?”

With a puzzled look, he opened the weekly magazine.

What appeared on the first page were several eye-catching characters.

“What a joke? How could our country possibly have a Numerical Control Machine Tool with such high precision? This National Daily is really full of it, now they've even learned to spread rumors and false news, no wonder they're suppressed by the Huaxia News Agency.”

Lu Weimin scoffed, his gaze continuing to scan the weekly magazine page.

He wanted to see.

How exactly the National Daily would boast about this so-called High-Precision CNC Machine Tool.

He had some understanding of Numerical Control Machine Tools.

Although he was not an expert in the relevant field, as the director of an automobile manufacturing plant, he was definitely not unfamiliar with Numerical Control Machine Tools.

After all.

There were many Numerical Control Machine Tools in the factory, but their precision was not as high as what was described in the weekly magazine.

And these Numerical Control Machine Tools were all imported from the German Country.

Their precision was approximately within 0.007 millimeters.

Even such a machine tool was only acquired through the boss's connections, allowing it to be bought from abroad.

However.

These Numerical Control Machine Tools could only manufacture car parts that were programmed into them and could not freely produce other parts.

To produce other different parts.

The parts to be manufactured had to be sent in advance to the senior executives of the companies in the German Country that produced the machine tools.

After obtaining the consent of these executives.

The other party would send engineers to modify the system program.

Only in this way could the desired parts be manufactured, otherwise, the machine tool would be locked by the program and turn into scrap metal.

“It even comes with a photo?”

Lu Weimin was surprised, adjusted his glasses, and looked closely.

The image showed the dial of a measuring instrument.

And the pointer on the dial was pointing to a number, which was the same number mentioned in the caption of this news.

“Do you really think that with a caption and a related photo, people will believe it? Who would be so naive?”

Lu Weimin shook his head, his face full of disbelief.

The Numerical Control Machine Tool described in the weekly magazine had a precision within 0.001 millimeters.

How was this possible?

As far as he knew, even in the German Country, which was at the forefront of the Numerical Control Machine Tool field, the highest precision of its Numerical Control Machine Tools was only within 0.006 millimeters.

And how much difference was there between 0.006 millimeters and the 0.001 millimeters mentioned in the weekly magazine?

A full 0.005 millimeters!

How many years of development would such a large gap require to achieve?

And in the current domestic situation.

Let alone a Numerical Control Machine Tool with 0.007 millimeters precision, it was unclear if there was even a Numerical Control Machine Tool with precision within 0.009 millimeters.

At least.

He had not heard of any enterprise publicly claiming to have produced a Numerical Control Machine Tool with 0.009 millimeters precision.

Currently in the country.

The precision of Numerical Control Machine Tools was far, far behind that of foreign countries.

It was simply a world of difference!

If not for this, their automobile factory would not have spent heavily to purchase and introduce Numerical Control Machine Tools from abroad.

Lu Weimin continued to look down.

Another picture appeared in his eyes.

The picture showed an old man with thinning, graying hair, looking excitedly at a machine in front of him.

Below the picture, there was a small line of text—Hu Guoyong, Academician, academician of the National Academy of Sciences, visiting the machine tool.

“Wait, this is?”

Seeing the old man in the picture, he immediately widened his eyes, utterly shocked.

He was not at all unfamiliar with this old man.

Back then.

This old man had even visited their automobile factory, and he himself had personally served tea and water to him.

How could he forget such a memorable person!

“That's right, this must be Hu Lao, I never expected that even Hu Lao would be on site!”

Lu Weimin looked closely at the old man in the picture again, utterly astonished.

He, of course, understood what this meant.

Seeing the old man's excited expression already proved the authenticity of this news!

“What a joke, in our country, someone actually developed a Numerical Control Machine Tool with such high precision, this is too exaggerated!”

Lu Weimin was utterly shocked.

Suddenly.

He remembered the email the product manager had just sent him.

“That's right. Since there really is a Numerical Control Machine Tool with such high precision, couldn't our factory's car parts be processed soon?”

Thinking of this, Lu Weimin instantly became excited.

He quickly dialed the phone and called in an executive.

“Director, what's the matter?”

Lu Weimin handed the newspaper to the executive:

“Quickly contact the National Daily and see if they have the contact information for this factory!””