Chapter Ten: Houses and Factories

  These two chapters are a bit rough, so please forgive me!

  Simida searched Baidu and soon found the information he wanted about Qinghua Tool Factory: "Qinghua Factory covers an area of 540,000 square meters, with more than 600 senior and intermediate technical personnel, and has over 2,000 sets of various equipment."

  There are 1130 metal cutting machines, 254 punching, forging and lifting equipment, 476 power, heat treatment and surface treatment equipment, 14 factory buildings with a total area of 48000 square meters. The plant has complete water supply, drainage, heating and power facilities, and there is an 800-meter-long railway dedicated line.

  Also, I compared it with the pictures of the factory area that can be searched online. At least from the photos, this is still quite in line with Sima's thoughts, except that this factory is a bit too big. It would take him at least several years to build such a large factory, which obviously does not meet Sima's requirements.

  However, if possible, Sima would also be happy to use this set of drawings to build such a large factory. If he could build a factory like this himself, just thinking about it is very pleasant. However, Sima also understands that at least with his current financial resources, it seems that he cannot afford such a large project.

  Obviously, a large comprehensive factory like Shougang Qinghua Factory is not suitable for Sima's requirements. At least for now, such a large comprehensive factory is not the type of factory that Sima needs. Just from the time it takes to build this kind of factory and plant area, it is not what Sima can tolerate. For Sima, if he could build a factory today and lay the foundation tomorrow, that would be the best.

  "What you actually need now is a simple factory building, which has almost no technical difficulty and is even simpler than building a bucket house. The cost of such a simple factory building is low, the construction speed is fast, and it's more suitable for you, isn't it?"

  Wang Lei was in front of the computer and saw Sima's request, saying that he had sent a message.

  "Haha! Thanks for your opinion, I think you don't seem like a businessman, otherwise you wouldn't have made such a suggestion."

  Simar felt that this online seller was not like a businessman, as ordinary businessmen would recommend the most profitable goods, but instead told Simar straightforwardly that he didn't need to buy factory drawings, and just needed to build a simple and easy-to-build factory first.

  Hehe! Maybe! You can't be considered a qualified businessman, I'm afraid not many people would buy this kind of old-fashioned factory blueprint nowadays. To be honest, although the Russian-style factories look stupid and rough, their adaptability is the strongest, suitable for renovation into various types of buildings. The cost is higher, but the lifespan is very long.

  In fact, most of the military-industrial enterprises' workshops are still using this old-fashioned workshop. If they were to switch to steel structure workshops, it would have been finished more than half a century ago."

  Wang Lei thought that the person who wanted to buy the blueprint was quite interesting, as it's rare for people to want to buy this kind of thing nowadays, but he specifically asked for it.

  Wang Lei himself was working in a state-owned construction engineering institute, where young people mostly did odd jobs. In his spare time, Wang Lei took advantage of the convenience of his work to scan some old drawings and make money online.

  Because this engineering institute participated in the planning and design of many factory areas at the beginning of the founding of the country, there are a large number of old-style factory planning and design drawings. Although there are no shortage of ordnance enterprise factory planning drawings, nobody has ever realized that these drawings need to be kept confidential.

  Wang Lei was also unaware that he was actually constituting a leak, at least if discovered. Fortunately, over the years Wang Lei had only sold some residential district building plans and some modern factory drawings, and apart from Sima, Wang Lei really hadn't encountered such customers.

  "Well, in that case, I really must thank you! Otherwise, would you help me sort out some simple factory house materials?"

  Simma felt that he would definitely be in contact with this seller again, anyway, he didn't understand what a simple factory building was, so it's better to let him handle it.

  "That thing is worthless, if you want it, give me 100 yuan and I'll give you the whole set."

  Wang Lei only then discovered that the person who had been buying paper all this time was actually an outsider, probably just a boss who wanted to open a factory. It's quite funny, Wang Lei thought, and if this person was willing to build a Russian-style factory, he wouldn't even mind going to work for him.

  After all, the construction of such a large factory covering an area of several square kilometers is almost rare nowadays, especially for factories that require a lot of earthwork. Although steel structure buildings are quick and beautiful, they lack the industrial flavor of traditional factories.

  "Okay! I'll transfer the money from Alipay to you right away." Sima hurriedly opened his own Alipay to make the payment.

  "Alright! Don't be polite, that kind of simple factory structure design and simple factory planning can be found online with a lot of resources, you don't even need to spend a penny to download them, I'll give you a website, go download it yourself!"

  Wang Lei felt that he didn't need to earn this money, and what he said earlier was just a joke.

  "Hehe! Thanks a lot for that. I'll keep the drawings of Shougang Qinghua Tool Factory, who knows when I might need them in the future."

  Simma opened the website sent by the seller and found that there was indeed relevant information on it. It felt like this seller was quite interesting, not wanting to earn his own money, from over 6,000 to 100 and finally becoming free of charge.

  If everyone in the world did business like this person, it would be terrible... haha! In comparison, Sima felt that he was indeed a shrewd businessman.

  "Hmm! This simple steel frame structure with asbestos tile roofing looks pretty good. The construction period is also very short! Not bad, not bad."

  After downloading the e-book, Sima carefully reviewed the structural design of various simple factory buildings introduced above and found that many of them were indeed suitable for his needs. The so-called simple factory building is a large-scale use of angle steel, H-beam welding to form a frame, and then screwing iron plates, wooden boards, asbestos tiles and other materials as wall bodies.

  In fact, it only plays a windproof role and does not have the effect of thermal insulation like color steel plate buildings. However, due to its low cost and fast construction speed, it is adopted by many small factories. After all, in China, there are not many manufacturers willing to invest a lot of money in factory building construction.

  Sometimes I think that the fastest way to build a factory is to clone one, and in modern society, many factory buildings are actually repetitive designs.

  Like Orville, in the early days of national construction, when assisting our country to establish factories, most of them were directly cloning Orville's factories to our country. Not only did they adopt the same mechanical equipment for factory planning and design, but also adopted the same machinery, which undoubtedly greatly accelerated the speed of factory construction.

  For Sima now, what he needs is to speed up the construction. Although this 21st-century warehouse has not been bought yet, as long as the money is saved, it will probably take only two days for this warehouse to become his own property.

  But in 1915, it was not so smooth. If a large warehouse and factory area were not built there, it would be impossible to transport various materials in batches towards the bright future.

  If it takes a few years to build, I'm afraid that by then it won't be Sima reselling materials, but rather the warring nations of Europe in that time and space selling various leftover war materials to China. By then, not losing money would be good enough. For now, cloning a factory has become Sima's choice.

  In 1954, Li Fuchun, the director of the National Economic Commission, proposed during an inspection in Shanghai: "Our country has a market of 600 million people, and the watch industry has great potential. I hope Shanghai can produce watches made by our own country."

  July 9, 1955, Shanghai Second Light Industry Bureau and Shanghai Watch Industry Association organized 13 watch factories and Jian Guo Instrument Factory, Hua Kang Watch Material Store, Shen Chang Watch Store, and Yi Xing, He Cheng, Hua Cheng, Zhong Su and other four industrial societies, plus six individual technicians engaged in watch repair, a total of 58 people participated in the wristwatch trial production group.

  The first batch of trial-produced Long Three Needle (17 drill) fine horse watches, with 150 parts, were manufactured separately by the participating units and personnel. By September 26, the first batch of 18 Long Three Needle (17 drill) fine horse watches was assembled. The following May, the trial production work was concentrated on Jiangyin Road (the original Qixin Spring Factory warehouse), the trial team expanded to over 150 people, using simple equipment to produce the second batch of 100 watches.

  In April 1957, the trial team assigned engineers Xi Guozhen and Tong Qinfen to refer to the textbook "Russian Craftsmanship" and combine it with practical experience. After more than four months, they drew over 150 component drawings and established a production process of 1070 steps, becoming China's first self-formulated watch manufacturing process document.

  In March 1958, the A581 mechanical watch was registered as a Shanghai brand trademark. On April 23, China's first watch factory - Shanghai Watch Factory was completed. That year, a total of 13,600 Shanghai-brand watches were produced. From then on, it ended the history that China could only repair watches but not make them...

  Looking at the information searched from the web, Sima felt that he had obviously overthought the watch industry, initially thinking that producing such goods would require large factories like mass-produced goods.

  It was unexpected that even in the corridors and offices, small machine tools could be used to produce such watches. At least according to the data, in the 1960s, Shanghai watch enterprises used this method to expand production in order to increase productivity.

  The Shanghai watch enterprise that produced tens of millions of mechanical watches per year back then is now... Alas! Sima looked at the introduction on the material, these enterprises actually have an annual operating rate of less than 10% of what it was back then. The famous Shanghai brand watches that were once known throughout the country have long since stopped production and have either become processing enterprises for various counterfeit watches or have become processing enterprises for private enterprises to process movement and other precision parts.

  Looking at the information about these companies selling old machinery online, Sima couldn't help but have stars in his eyes. To outsiders, this kind of old equipment might seem to have no use value, but in Sima's eyes, it was just what he needed.

  These devices are nothing like the mechanical equipment of today, which is all about CNC and whatnot. They are mostly domestically-made mechanical equipment from the 1970s. Like those few 24-spindle high-speed drilling machines,

  According to the introduction above, the gemstone bearing used for making watch movements can be drilled 2,500-3,000 holes per person per day. This small drilling equipment looks old-fashioned and its production efficiency is less than one-tenth of that of a laser drilling machine.

  But this equipment was most suitable for 1915 and was very advanced. There were also other machining equipment.

  Simar looked at the online sales information of these old equipment, including mold and strap molds, and even felt lucky that these state-owned enterprises had been transformed. If not, they might have to customize these devices from other factories.

  How long will it take to manufacture these equipment, let alone Sima doesn't even know what machines are needed to set up a watch factory. At present, most of the equipment is directly pulled out from the factory and only needs skilled workers to restart the machine to quickly produce new watches. By then, there will be an endless supply of watches produced from his own factory.

  Of course, Sima understood that all of this was premised on the fact that he himself had to train a batch of skilled technical workers in the space-time continuum of 1915.

  Otherwise, even if these machines are operated, they will be in vain. At present, Sima feels that it is still more stable to assemble precision components such as movement and case from modern customized machinery, and then slowly produce cases and straps step by step.

  Moreover, it is a problem to train those illiterate farmers who do not even recognize a few characters to assemble such precise mechanical watches. Obviously, this watch cannot be assembled by those illiterate farmers who do not even recognize a few characters.

  "Russian Crafts" is "Soviet Crafts", a book that replaces Soviet use with Russian fabric.