Chapter 5

Under Wang Qingfeng's lead, the three of them left the two-story office building and headed towards the modern steel-framed factory, which was dozens of meters away.

As they walked, the workers were just leaving the workshop with their lunch boxes to go to the canteen for their meals. They would have to work overtime for an hour after their break. The workers, dressed in greasy work clothes, saw the factory manager leading a young child towards the workshop and began to chatter.

Just as they reached the factory door, Yun Fei kept shaking his head.

From the outside, the newly constructed simple factory looked quite modern, but inside, it was like stepping into a factory from the British Industrial Revolution, completely dirty, messy, and poor in condition!

The equipment was so dirty that its original color could no longer be seen, and the floor was littered with metal shavings, making it almost impossible to walk. Various blanks were scattered around the equipment, and semi-finished and finished products were also haphazardly placed on the ground.

"Brother Yun, these are all unavoidable. The workers have to work overtime every day and don't have time to maintain the equipment. We are a private company; we don't need to make it look good like state-owned factories if it can't produce anything." Seeing Yun Fei shaking his head at the workshop environment, Wang Qingfeng explained.

Yun Fei shook his head, not saying anything.

"Our factory bought eight 20-lathes and two 30-lathes from Shen Yijī last year, as well as four vertical milling machines from the Beijing Machine Tool Factory. The processing capability for ordinary parts is quite strong..."

Indeed, the hardware of Qingfeng Machinery was quite good, but Yun Fei couldn't say much about the workers and the environment. In such an environment, he wasn't sure if they could produce parts with high precision requirements.

"Boss Wang, can you show me your CNC machines?" Seeing the environment, Yun Fei was already hesitant.

Working in such a dirty, messy, and poor environment was very depressing.

Although these were second-hand machines bought from abroad and had not been operated yet, Wang Qingfeng still treated them as treasures. He built a separate workshop next to the machining workshop to house the two lathes and one milling machine.

When Yun Fei saw them, he couldn't help but smile. The CNC milling machine was actually a JCS-013, and the two CNC lathes were VDF800s. Yun Fei was very familiar with these two types of CNC machines, which were well-known in mainland China in the 1980s. However, he was really curious about who could be so wasteful as to sell these machines, which once cost nearly $10,000 each, for less than 300,000 RMB.

In the 1980s, the state-owned factory where Yun Fei used to work was still using these old machines, despite their many problems.

These second-hand CNC machines, which had changed hands many times before ending up with Wang Qingfeng, were now fully capable of meeting the requirements of Qingfeng Machinery.

Although they were old machines from the early 1980s, if they were not too worn out, they should be able to produce the complex stainless steel thin-walled parts required by the drawing.

To determine whether they could produce the stainless steel thin-walled parts, a thorough inspection of the two CNC lathes was necessary.

When Yun Fei asked Wang Qingfeng, he found out that the three CNC machines had not even been connected to power. This made Yun Fei sigh at the superficial thinking of the bosses of this era.

Initially, Wang Qingfeng bought these three CNC machines to show off to clients visiting his factory, so whether they were operational or not was not important to him.

Now, with the lucrative opportunity in front of him, he had to reassess himself.

At Yun Fei's request, Wang Qingfeng gave him the technical documents and operation manuals for the CNC machines and then went to the canteen to find the electrician who was having lunch.

When Yun Fei asked for the technical documents and operation manuals, Wang Qingfeng was a bit skeptical. He didn't believe that a young kid like Yun Fei could understand the technical documents and operation manuals, which were full of letters.

So, after Yun Fei had been reading the technical documents for a while, Wang Qingfeng finally went to find the electrician to connect the power for the CNC machines.

After flipping through the two not-so-thick technical documents and operation manuals, Yun Fei realized that the machines were not all from Germany as Wang Qingfeng had said. The JCS-013 was from Switzerland and used a Japanese FANUC 7M system, while the VDF800 was from Germany and used a Japanese FANUC 6 system.

These machines, while amusing, also made him feel deeply helpless. In his previous era, domestic CNC machines could not even match the low-end machines from abroad, and their limited production capacity could not meet the demands of the military-industrial system. Therefore, before the mid-1990s, the domestic CNC market was dominated by foreign companies.

Wang Qingfeng quickly brought the electrician to the workshop where the CNC machines were located and worked hard to connect the power.

When the power switch was turned on, the entire display screen was blank, with no interface like the ones seen in the future. After a moment of thought, he understood. These CNC machines were probably cheap because they lacked the PLC control program.

Using the CD player of the CNC machine to open the programming interface, Yun Fei quickly input a series of letters through the PLC controller's operation panel, leaving Wang Qingfeng and Liu Yushui staring in amazement.

In the original world, before the 21st century, Yun Fei had only simulated the PLC control program on a computer and had no idea how it would work in practice, but now he was using it.

While quickly inputting the ladder diagram program, he kept smoking one cigarette after another. In less than an hour, the pack of Hongtashan cigarettes given to him by the secretary was already finished.

"Boss Wang, do you have any more cigarettes?" Yun Fei patted his pockets again, finding no more cigarettes, and turned to see Wang Qingfeng and Liu Yushui staring at him intently.

"I'll go buy some right away." Seeing Yun Fei asking for cigarettes, Wang Qingfeng patted his pockets, which were empty, and Liu Yushui, who was with him, had already finished all his cigarettes.

"I only smoke Hongtashan, hurry up!" Yun Fei didn't pay attention to the fact that he was giving orders to someone who would soon be his boss. At that moment, his mind was entirely focused on the ladder diagram program.

Wang Qingfeng quickly bought a pack of Hongtashan cigarettes from a nearby store. Without a secretary, he had to do it himself.

In this era, private business owners didn't mind being ordered around. Wang Qingfeng had always thought that the CNC machines he bought could only be used as decorations to show off to clients visiting his factory. Now, seeing that the young kid who demanded a sky-high salary could operate them skillfully, he was more than willing to fetch cigarettes for him.

For Wang Qingfeng, the PLC programming and basic operation of CNC machines were no different. He had already made up his mind that as long as Yun Fei could get even one CNC machine running, he would agree to all of Yun Fei's demands.

Once the CNC machines started running, it wouldn't take long for the 300,000 RMB he had spent to be quickly recovered. Then, he could continuously add more CNC machines, and the money would keep rolling in.

"These treasures must be kept, no matter what." From the moment he saw Yun Fei continuously inputting programs, Wang Qingfeng had already made up his mind.

Deng Xiaoping had said that science and technology are the primary productive forces. The key is the people who master the technology. Without people, everything is just a mirage.

Before Yun Fei asked Wang Qingfeng to buy cigarettes, Wang Qingfeng's condition for keeping Yun Fei had changed from giving him shares to offering his daughter, who was in high school in Northeast China, in marriage.

Liu Yushui, seeing Yun Fei's performance, was filled with regret and melancholy. He knew that this treasure would not belong to him.

Good birds choose good trees. His pond was too shallow. However, he had gained a lot of knowledge today and had decided that even if he had to sell everything, he would get CNC machines and ask Yun Fei to be the master of his small factory when he had time.

Although the ladder diagram program for controlling the 1980s CNC lathes was not too difficult, Yun Fei, after starting quickly, wrote more and more slowly.

A good software program is not just about making the machine run. It must use the simplest program to control the most functions. Since Yun Fei's understanding of 1980s CNC lathes was not thorough, he had to constantly recall the ladder diagram programs he had only simulated in his studies.

Liu Yushui, seeing that Yun Fei would not finish anytime soon, was hungry and had planned to ask Wang Qingfeng to go eat something, but Wang Qingfeng, who was completely focused on Yun Fei's programming, refused. Seeing that it was already dark outside, he had to find a way to go back on his own.