Chapter 77

"Next, the equipment we are about to bring in has very high environmental requirements. The current conditions in Workshop 2 are absolutely unsuitable!"

Hu Wenhui stood in the spacious Workshop 2 — it was almost a miracle. Hu Hu indeed had some ability; he had managed to empty the entire Workshop 2 with just a few people in two days.

Although Workshop 2 was originally just a model workshop, mainly for making sand molds and wooden models, the equipment was relatively simple and not very large. However, the workshop itself covered nearly 900 square meters, appearing quite spacious. As the saying goes, even a broken home is worth a fortune, and over the years, a considerable amount of heavy equipment had accumulated.

The once crowded Workshop 2 was now completely empty, even the electric hoists that used to hang from the ceiling beams were gone.

A group of people now stood at the entrance, looking at the soon-to-be-revitalized Workshop 2 with a mix of solemnity and curiosity.

"Our conditions in Workshop 2 are not bad. How can we improve it? When the Soviets helped build it, they designed it this way, and about 80% of the workshops in the country are similar!"

The speaker was Hu Wenhui's rehired master craftsman, Wang Deyang, the former director of Workshop 2. He had been the workshop director for over a decade, and no one in the factory knew Workshop 2 better than he did.

He felt a mix of regret and anticipation about the now empty Workshop 2. He regretted that the place where he had once worked was now devoid of those old companions. But he was also looking forward to the "mysterious" production line Hu Wenhui was about to introduce.

In this world, only Hu Wenhui knew what the equipment he had spent hundreds of millions of dollars on in the United States was for.

With his confidence in Hu Wenhui, Wang Deyang was somewhat hopeful that the new equipment would bring glory back to Workshop 2.

However, Hu Wenhui's dissatisfaction with the conditions in Workshop 2 was hard for Wang Deyang to accept. The overall hardware conditions of Workshop 2 were excellent, with a large-span factory building five meters high, brick and concrete structure, and extensive use of steel beams and reinforced concrete pillars. It was not easy for Factory 501 to accumulate such assets!

Sigh, the young man is just a young man, not understanding the principle of making do with what you have and patching things up for another three years, always wanting new and fashionable things!

But Hu Wenhui didn't see it that way. What did he do at BYD's Ningbo factory? From a product qualification rate of less than 40% at the beginning to 95% later, the path to improving product quality was driven step by step by Hu Wenhui.

This involved many advanced technological innovations, but also a lot of not-so-advanced, even seemingly trivial, detail improvements.

For example, everyone knows that chip production lines require extremely high-standard cleanrooms. Personnel entering and exiting need to wear dust-proof suits, which are essentially rubber or plastic coveralls that completely encase the person.

However, these dust-proof suits still come into contact with the outside air, so they inevitably have dust on their surfaces. Before entering the production area, the staff must first enter a dust-removal chamber, where air from all directions blows away the dust on the suits.

The problem is that the dust-proof suits often have wrinkles, so the dust-removal chamber's air may not completely remove the dust.

Hu Wenhui spent a month with a team of three doctoral students in the dust-removal chamber, trying hundreds of postures—finally finding a posture that could most effectively blow the dust off the suits.

How boring! But this project eventually resulted in a paper that discussed how plastic coveralls could maximize their surface area under high air flow conditions by changing the human posture.

Perhaps to outsiders, this research might seem very boring, but for high-cleanliness chip production, such a study ultimately increased the yield by 0.4 percentage points.

In fact, quality control often involves such trivial matters. The 55% increase in yield at the Ningbo factory was supported by hundreds of such technologies.

The project Hu Wenhui planned for Workshop 2 didn't require such extreme conditions, but to meet his quality standards, the current conditions in Workshop 2 were clearly insufficient.

"This factory building is just a product of Soviet technology from the 1950s. Its environmental standards are long outdated for modern production requirements." Hu Wenhui stomped on the cement floor and frowned. "Director Wang, look, this cement floor is unsuitable for modern precision production. It generates a lot of dust from the friction of moving objects! You can ask my grandfather; if there's too much cement dust on the critical parts of the equipment, what would be the result?"

Wang Deyang was stunned, unable to respond. He didn't need to ask Hu Shiwu; he knew the answer himself.

Whenever a production task was assigned, the first thing operators had to do was to maintain the machines. This usually involved routine maintenance, such as changing the oil and calibrating the processing accuracy. If the product requirements were very high, the maintenance would be even more meticulous. They would use clean cotton cloth dipped in oil to wipe every part of the equipment spotlessly, not only calibrating the cutting tools and feed mechanisms but also recalibrating the entire machine's transmission system...

The master craftsmen were not unaware of the impact of the environment on the equipment, but they tended to clean up only when necessary. Was it really necessary to lay flooring just to avoid a bit of dust?

Hu Wenhui, however, was accustomed to the meticulous production conditions of the future and found nothing strange about controlling quality at the source.

"Also, the ventilation in Workshop 2 is inadequate. With such a large space, the entire workshop relies on two doors and a few windows for air circulation. The result is poor air flow, with hot air accumulating at the ceiling, causing dust to gather on the beams and roof. During production, this dust falls back to the ground, causing secondary pollution. These issues must be addressed!"

"The cement brick walls are exposed and crack severely in the dry and cold conditions of Northeast China, also causing production environmental pollution. The ground has not been waterproofed, leading to high humidity from groundwater seepage, which slowly corrodes the equipment and ultimately affects product quality!"

...

The already old Workshop 2 was now even more inadequate in Hu Wenhui's eyes. As he walked and talked, he managed to list over twenty issues that needed to be addressed.

Did these issues exist? Wang Deyang had to admit, they did. Although they had existed for decades, they had been ignored, like the proverbial fish that doesn't notice the water it swims in.

At least after this walk, Wang Deyang was thoroughly convinced of Hu Wenhui's ability to identify problems. Regardless of other skills, his ability to spot issues was indeed sharp. In the progress of human technology, recognizing and identifying problems is often the longest and most challenging part, while solving them is relatively quick.

It took humans hundreds of thousands of years to look up at the stars, but only two thousand years to set foot on the moon.

Therefore, the ability to identify and solve problems is equally important. As for whether Hu Wenhui could only identify problems, Wang Deyang soon had no reason to worry.

"This is the design for the renovation of Workshop 2. Do you, Master Craftsmen, have any opinions?" After pointing out the issues, Hu Wenhui squatted down and spread out a stack of handwritten documents on the ground, inviting the master craftsmen to gather around and explain: "This is the design for a strip roof ventilator, which can expel hot air from the roof and is dust-proof and waterproof. If made with transparent plastic panels, it can also solve the lighting problem in the workshop."

"Oh, this is good!" Wang Deyang, seeing Hu Wenhui's hand-drawn design, immediately understood the key points and recognized its benefits.

Roof ventilators were standard in future steel structures, with no significant technical content. They were simply two vertical panels embracing a horizontal panel, effectively solving the issues of rain and dust.

However, the idea of opening windows on the roof was not something most people would think of. Of course, similar designs existed, with some factories having ventilation towers on their roofs, but these structures were not as simple and convenient, and their dust-proof and waterproof performance was inferior, sometimes even causing air to flow back in on windy days.

"But if we need transparent plastic panels, where can we get them?"

"That's easy. I know the factory manager of Xiucheng Petrochemical Plant 6. I'll talk to him, and he'll definitely help me out!"

"Oh?" Hu Wenhui, who had been a bit worried about the material issue, looked up and smiled. "Great, with Secretary Luo's help, it's a sure thing!"

Luo Likou had been a leader at Factory 501 for many years and had extensive connections in Xiucheng's industrial sector. A batch of lighting panels was no problem for him.

"Also, for the ground treatment, I have two ideas. Normally, we should use epoxy self-leveling floors, but that's hard to get. The alternative is to lay wooden floors and apply clear varnish, or to use tiles. What do you think, and do you have any suggestions?"

"If we use wooden floors and varnish, the cost..."

"Don't worry about the cost!" Hu Wenhui smiled confidently. "As long as the equipment can start production sooner, the costs will be recovered! Our task is to get the production line up and running as quickly as possible!"

"Wow, that's impressive!" Wang Deyang, surprised, rubbed his head. "If we do this, Workshop 2 will be more comfortable than our workers' homes!"