Chapter 83

Chen Geng lowered his head and calculated for a moment. The old man gave a number that almost made Chen Geng bite his tongue: "At least 1.2 million!"

"So much?"

At the time, 1.2 million was definitely not a small amount.

"Is this a lot?" The old man laughed. "I've given you the most streamlined estimate. If we follow SAIC's previous methods, you wouldn't even think about it without 2 million."

"1.2 million is still too much. Is there no other way?" Chen Geng frowned, knowing that it was impossible for Ronghua Industry to come up with such a huge sum of 800,000 at the moment.

"There's no other way. If you want to achieve an annual production capacity of 150,000 engines, that's the amount, and..." The old man paused, "Even for 50,000 units, the required funds wouldn't be much less."

Chen Geng nodded, understanding the old man's point: some equipment was essential, and you might only need one machine, whether for 50,000 or 150,000 units per year, you still need that one machine, and you can't avoid buying it.

"Can we try to reduce the costs further? We still need to set up a research institute and build houses in Shanghai next year, and our funds are not abundant."

"Really no way," the old man smiled bitterly, "Either temporarily don't build the houses, or set a lower target."

As he spoke, the old man secretly observed Chen Geng's reaction. He knew very well that the main reason these old hands from SAIC's engine factory were willing to travel far to work at Ronghua Industry was Chen Geng's promise to build houses. Without the houses, few would stay. Even from a personal perspective, he hoped Chen Geng would build the houses first. The reason was simple: Chen Geng had promised him a three-bedroom, two-living room apartment, or two two-bedroom, one-living room apartments with a price difference.

The old man had two sons and a daughter. Although his eldest son was already in junior high school, no local Shanghai resident lacked housing.

"That's not right..." Chen Geng frowned, feeling something was off.

"What's not right?" The old man was puzzled.

"The cost, it shouldn't be this much. I don't think we need this much money," Chen Geng's frown deepened. He tentatively asked, "You're not saying that all the parts of the entire engine are produced by us, right?"

"Of course, what's wrong with that? Isn't that how everyone produces them?" The old man sighed in relief. He had thought Chen Geng was suspecting him of padding the numbers, which made him very unhappy. Now, realizing it was a misunderstanding, he felt a bit embarrassed.

"That's what I thought..." Chen Geng finally understood.

Given the current purchasing power of RMB and the technical content of a two-stroke engine, Chen Geng couldn't see why such a large investment was necessary. The reason was clear now.

This was a matter of national conditions. Domestic companies were long accustomed to self-sufficiency. Large state-owned enterprises had their own primary and secondary schools, hospitals, vegetable bases, pig farms, militia battalions, armed departments, and even public security institutions, forming independent small societies. This was especially true for behemoths like SAIC. Even a small factory producing thermoses would want to build its own glass factory to supply the glass, plant trees to produce the cork stoppers, and even set up a blow-molding base if possible.

This was the national condition, but for Chen Geng, who had lived in Europe for many years and was used to the division of labor among companies, this "large enterprise, small society" model was hard to accept. Modern industrial mass production required more precise division of labor: if you produce gears, focus on producing gears to the highest standards; if you produce pistons, focus on producing high-quality, cost-effective pistons. As the assembly plant, we only need to produce core components and handle the final assembly, saving a large initial investment and effectively controlling product quality.

"What are you trying to say?" The old man didn't understand Chen Geng's thoughts and was puzzled by his reaction.

"What I'm saying is, why do we need to produce all the parts ourselves? Why can't we outsource most of the parts and only produce the most critical ones?" Chen Geng asked, "This way, we only need to focus on quality control for the outsourced parts and the final assembly."

The old man had deeply ingrained the habit of producing all needed parts in-house. He instinctively rejected Chen Geng's "heretical" idea: "How can that be? It's absolutely not possible."

"Why not? Volkswagen also operates this way. For the engine in the Santana, less than 70% of the parts are produced in-house, and over 30% are sourced from other companies."

"Because... because..."

The word "because" stuck in the old man's throat. Chen Geng's words completely颠覆了谢老的思维方式：桑塔纳上搭载的那台1.8L发动机，狼堡自己生产的零件竟然还不足70%？

对此，老爷子感到极度震惊。

“是真的，”陈耕解释道，“我和狼堡派来的工程师聊天时他们告诉我的，现在狼堡自己生产的发动机零件有发动机机体、油底壳、中缸、曲轴、连杆、凸轮轴、气门这些偏精密的东西，里面的齿轮、外面的管路、正时皮带、配气系统的弹簧、密封垫圈、水泵、机油泵等等这些东西都是外购的，哦，他们一个很大的合作伙伴就是德国的博世公司。

您如果仔细去看一下狼堡送来的桑塔纳轿车的散件，其实狼堡自产的零件很少，很多零件上面都打着盖瑞特、法雷奥、萨克斯这些世界著名汽车零配件企业的商标。”

老爷子呆住了。

从83年德国人送来第一批桑塔纳的全套散件开始，自己竟然完全没有注意到这一点！

自己也从来没有细想过，完全可以自己生产一些技术含量最高的核心零配件，而将一些不怎么精密、要求不高的零件交给其他工厂去生产。老爷子其实并不清楚，很多高精密的零件乃至于成品，狼堡也是采购自其他公司。

这个冲击是巨大的，但作为一名有着40多年管理经验的厂长，在摒弃了心中的成见以及壁垒之后，老爷子立刻就意识到了这种分工协作的好处：

对固定资产的投资减小；

可以对配套的零件供应厂商提出更严格的质量要求来保证质量，因为大家不是一家企业，在质量出问题的时候不用太给对方面子；

第三，也是最重要的，可以很快的扩大生产规模：年产5万台发动机需要1个齿轮厂配套，当我需要将产能提高到15万的时候，如果你的产能跟得上，就继续跟你合作，如果你的产能跟不上，大不了我再去找两家齿轮厂配套就好了，但对于我来说，成本方面的投入几乎没有什么任何增加。

唯一的问题就是，会有企业愿意与我们合作吗？

这个想法一出来，老爷子自己都笑了：怎么可能没有企业愿意？

现在放眼国内，除了国家重点保障的那些企业之外，绝大多数的企业都不是很景气，大家找生意都找不到呢，谁会放着送上门的生意往外推？

摩托车发动机本身就是超级简化的发动机，而二冲程汽油机更是将发动机的内部结构简化到了极点。以陈耕设计的这台100cc排量的二冲程汽油发动机为例，如果去掉变速系统，发动机只需要几十个零件就能运转起来！

润华实业现在要找人帮自己生产的不过是这台100cc的二冲汽油机的档位齿轮而已，这台发动机的变速齿轮承受的冲击并不会很大，普通中碳钢材质的锻钢就可以胜任，精度也只能算是一般。谢老爷子看了一下陈耕设计的资料上对精度的要求，基本上与上海轿车上面的那台四速变速箱的精度相当，基本上国内具有一定技术实力和齿轮批量加工能力的企业，只要严格按照规程来都可以生产出合格的产品。

既然精度要求不高，为什么一定要自己费心费力的去生产呢，完全可以将这部分产品外包出去嘛。老爷子觉得自己之前的脑子完全可以丢茅坑里去了。

“这个办法好，”老爷子说，他并不是想不到这种分工协作的好处，只是几十年来已经习惯了什么都是自己来生产，思想根本就没有往这个方向来想。现在被陈耕这么一启发，老爷子憋了几十年的智慧一下子就迸发出来了：“我看啊，不仅是齿轮，像轴承、连杆、活塞环这样的东西，我们也可以外包出去嘛，甚至活塞也可以，我们自己做精度要求最高的曲轴就好了。我算一下……如果咱们大量外包，最多投入个20万左右就差不多了，这还算上一个洁净组装车间和仓库，不过质检人员的培训必须立刻抓起来。”

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This method is good," the old man said. He wasn't unaware of the benefits of such division of labor, but decades of habit had made him think everything must be produced in-house. Now, inspired by Chen Geng, decades of wisdom burst forth: "I think not only gears, but also bearings, connecting rods, and piston rings can be outsourced. Even pistons can be outsourced. We can focus on producing the highest-precision crankshaft. Let me calculate... If we outsource extensively, we would need to invest around 200,000 at most, including a clean assembly workshop and warehouse. However, we must immediately start training quality inspection personnel."