The car giant started by marrying the daughter of the king

Chapter 330 BMW Motor's Surprise

"Mr. Zheng, during the meeting yesterday, the Foreign Exchange Bureau complained that the factories under our department were spending too much foreign exchange."

"Especially in recent years, many automobile and home appliance production lines have been launched, and many of the core components need to be imported from abroad."

"The amount of foreign exchange used for these parts is already more than the foreign exchange we spent on purchasing imported equipment."

Zhou Jian called Zheng Haiming to his office to discuss how to save foreign exchange.

In 1984, the importance of foreign exchange was something that many people in later generations could not understand.

In the era of trillions of dollars in foreign exchange, the situation of foreign exchange quota usage faced by everyone was very different from that in the era of billions of dollars in foreign exchange.

"The foreign exchange consumed by various automakers to import parts in the form of CKD is determined when the relevant cooperation agreements are signed."

"As long as the State Administration of Foreign Exchange makes a budget for the use of foreign exchange according to the original plan, it shouldn't cause them much trouble."

"As for various home appliance companies, as far as I know, key components such as compressors need to be imported from abroad, and most other parts are purchased domestically."

"And the First Ministry of Machine Building is not the only one that has home appliance companies. As far as I know, many military factories under the Fifth Ministry of Machine Building have military-to-civilian projects to produce refrigerators, washing machines, televisions and other products, and the foreign exchange they consume is no less than ours."

Zheng Haiming is not willing to easily agree with the views of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange.

Otherwise, if the amount of foreign exchange used really needs to be reduced in the future, the development of many subsidiary factories will be affected.

This is a situation he doesn't want to see.

"Of course I understand what you said, but the State Administration of Foreign Exchange also has its own difficulties. We cannot ignore them. After all, the amount of foreign exchange used is constantly increasing. This is an objective fact."

Zhou Jian is also a leader who came from the grassroots level and has a relatively good understanding of many situations.

However, precisely because he understands the overall situation, he can also understand that all industries need to use a large amount of foreign exchange to develop their new products, and in this case, insufficient foreign exchange is inevitable.

Therefore, it is also necessary to consider reducing the amount of foreign exchange used to the greatest extent possible.

"All car manufacturers are now applying to use foreign exchange to import more CKD parts. For example, Shanghai Volkswagen's Santana sedan is in short supply."

"Many departments and units are purchasing Santana, and some even need a note from their leaders to pick up the car."

"Under this circumstance, Shanghai Volkswagen proposed to increase the production quantity. Even if we don't consider it, it's not easy to cut their original production plan, right?"

"Otherwise, those people would probably come directly to our office and slam the table!"

Zheng Haiming felt that he had to make the current situation clear, in order to prevent Zhou Jian from making some promises to the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, which would then be a headache for him to implement.

"The State Administration of Foreign Exchange basically understands the situation at the automaker."

"But all home appliance companies have to purchase motors on a large scale from abroad, and the amount of foreign exchange consumed for each motor is not low."

"The demand for products such as refrigerators, washing machines and televisions is indeed very strong, but at this stage our country does not have enough foreign exchange to import so many products."

"You need to organize relevant departments to discuss whether the import amount can be reduced. We can also give an explanation to the State Administration of Foreign Exchange."

Zhou Jian expressed his thoughts directly.

The State Administration of Foreign Exchange has already raised the issue at an important meeting, and it would be difficult for the Ministry of First Machine Building to ignore it.

We have to find a way to actually reduce the amount of foreign exchange used.

"For the motors used in refrigerators, washing machines and other home appliances, I will conduct research at various motor factories to see what problems localization faces."

“Try to make some efforts in this regard.”

Zheng Haiming knew that this was the minimum effort Zhou Jian could accept.

If he fails to achieve some results, he will have a hard time explaining to the State Administration of Foreign Exchange.

……

"Leader, Jiang Hui founded a company in Shenzhen called BMW Motors, and acquired a motor factory of Huazhong University of Science and Technology last year."

"At present, other domestic motor factories are unable to produce compressors, motors and other products needed for refrigerators and washing machines. Otherwise, home appliance manufacturers would not choose to use imported products."

"In this case, I think we can communicate with BMW Motor to see if they have the confidence to win the localization project of these parts?"

Qin Hao has always been concerned about Jiang Hui's situation, and naturally he is also aware of some of the movements at BMW Motors.

So after Zheng Haiming communicated with him, he immediately thought of BMW motors.

Qin Hao had already witnessed Jiang Hui's technical level.

Under the leadership of Jiang Hui, BMW Motor may bring surprises to itself again.

"BMW motors? I have some impression that they mainly develop various motors for cars, don't they?"

Zheng Haiming and Jiang Hui are also old acquaintances. He knows much more about many things related to Jiang Hui than ordinary leaders.

They are just some specific details, and he definitely doesn't have that much time to pay attention to them.

"Yes, Jiang Hui's original purpose in establishing BMW Motor was to provide supporting motor products for BMW cars."

"But now they have expanded the scope of their research to include not only motors used in cars, but also motors used in machine tools, welding robots and other products."

"The last time I visited Ji'nan No. 2 Machine Tool Factory, their director Qi Chao had just returned from an exchange with BMW Motors and talked to me about the cooperation between the two sides in developing machine tool motors."

"Compared with the various products currently developed by BMW Motors, I think the motors used in home appliances such as washing machines and refrigerators should not be that difficult to develop."

"As long as BMW Motor is interested, I think they can quickly produce this type of product. Some of the products they are developing now can even be used directly in washing machines."

Qin Hao quickly shared the information he knew with Zheng Haiming.

This aroused Zheng Haiming's interest. "You can contact Jiang Hui directly and share our ideas with him to see what he thinks."

Compared with other domestic motor manufacturers, Zheng Haiming has more confidence in Jiang Hui.

Although the technical threshold for motors used in household appliances such as refrigerators does not seem to be particularly high, the requirements for quality and other aspects are actually not low at all.

Otherwise, domestic home appliance manufacturers would not choose to import motors from foreign companies such as Mitsubishi Electric.

……

"Making refrigerator motors and washing machine motors?"

"It shouldn't be a big problem!"

When Jiang Hui received Qin Hao's contact, he agreed without any hesitation.

The First Machinery Department took the initiative to place an order for BMW motors, so they had to do it regardless of whether it was feasible or not. Besides, the technical threshold for motors in refrigerators and washing machines was not that high in Jiang Hui's opinion.

It’s just that in the past, the production capacity of products such as refrigerators and washing machines was too low, the technology was too backward, and the technical parameters and quality levels of the motors used were not satisfactory.

In recent years, some technologies and products have been introduced from abroad, and the relevant domestic motor manufacturers naturally have no way to produce motors with corresponding performance.

For example, in a washing machine, the most important part is actually the motor.

The refrigerator is similar.

If the performance of the motor is not up to standard, then the performance of all aspects of the product will definitely be poor.

Not to mention other things, just the noise of a motor, there is a big gap between the level of domestic motor manufacturers and imported motors.

If it is used on a washing machine, it may not be such a big problem.

But the refrigerator is different. It is used all day long and is basically placed indoors.

It's always buzzing and consumers can't stand it.

Especially now, people who can afford these products basically have well-off families and are more sensitive to things like noise.

"Have you ever studied this technology specifically?"

Although Qin Hao still has confidence in Jiang Hui, the products that BMW Motor is going to produce this time are motors that no other domestic manufacturers can make.

If BMW Motors hadn't done any research before, he wasn't sure how long it would take for them to figure it out.

"BMW Motor's goal is to become the world's largest motor manufacturer. Motors in all walks of life are within our research scope."

"From motors used in generators to welding robots and even some micro motors, they are all our research objects."

"And we now have a ready-made production line. Based on customer needs, we can take a certain model of motor from the product library and put it into mass production."

Jiang Hui's words were half true and half false.

Under normal circumstances, it is quite difficult for BMW Motor to obtain orders from various state-owned home appliance manufacturers.

After all, in this era, many factories were still accustomed to relying on the Planning Commission to arrange the supply of various raw materials and components, and rarely developed new supporting manufacturers on their own.

Especially if the situation with these supporting manufacturers is more complicated, people will be even more reluctant to touch them.

Since we all eat from the same pot, we should try not to do things that require taking risks and responsibilities if possible.

"That's the best. I'll arrange for several manufacturers to contact you right away to see when the motors can be produced."

"Nowadays, importing motors consumes a lot of foreign exchange, so the sooner we can make them domestically, the better."

After Qin Hao said this, Jiang Hui immediately understood why the other party was so active in getting orders for BMW motors.

Love History: Various home appliance manufacturers have consumed too much foreign exchange in importing motors.

……

"Director, this is a complete surprise for us."

"Automobile motors need to work in different road conditions and environments, so they need higher performance and durability. If they are modified and used in household products, there will be absolutely no quality problems."

"Household appliance motors generally use DC or AC motors with simple structures; while automotive motors require stronger torque and power output, and use complex AC synchronous motors or permanent magnet synchronous motors."

"In the early stage, as long as we can meet the needs of home appliance manufacturers, it doesn't matter even if the cost is a little higher. Anyway, their main goal is to reduce the use of foreign exchange, not to reduce costs."

"So we can fully combine the needs of home appliance factories and start small-scale mass production of home appliance motors next month."

"In the future, we will combine targeted optimization to gradually reduce costs and further suppress other competitors from entering the market."

Wu Wei is quite excited now.

The prospects of the home appliance motor market are definitely worth looking forward to.

He had considered entering this industry before, but there were various problems.

Now that the Ministry of First Machine Industry has taken the initiative to take the lead, coupled with the technological breakthrough of BMW Motor, this business has become very smooth.

Now that BMW Motor has BMW as a major customer and the support of various home appliance manufacturers, the whole business has come alive.

"I heard from the ministry that the foreign exchange quota is very tight now. They hope that we can meet the needs of various home appliance factories to the greatest extent and replace the imported motors as soon as possible."

"So you should speed up your schedule, even if it means spending a little more money."

As long as the money is given, the impact that the Chinese people can unleash is astonishing.

If there are not enough production lines, we can arrange several shifts to work on it 24 hours a day.

If you can't handle product development, then just live and eat in the factory and make breakthroughs quickly.

This is the first time that the department has taken the initiative to help get orders, so Jiang Hui must cherish it and absolutely must not let down his guard.

Otherwise, there will be no such good things in the future.

"No problem. I will assemble a few prototypes in the laboratory for testing next week, and start large-scale mass production next month. I hope to fully meet the motor needs of various domestic home appliance manufacturers within the next six months."

"But in this case, we also need to build a new production line immediately, otherwise even if we work overtime, we may not be able to meet the production capacity demand."

Wu Wei was absolutely delighted with Jiang Hui's instruction.

This means that the next step in the development of BMW Motor will be smooth sailing and will receive all-round support from various human and material resources.

"BMW Motor reserved a relatively large space when it was first planned, and even built part of the factory building in advance. Now we just need to introduce the production line in advance."

"However, in order to avoid wasting too much time in expanding production capacity in the future, you can start the construction of the second phase of the factory at the same time."

Jiang Hui already had high expectations for BMW motors, so there was naturally no problem with Wu Wei's talk of expanding production.

He even directly asked Wu Wei to start expanding the factory to shorten the preparation time for subsequent production expansion as much as possible.

Otherwise, we have to build factories and install equipment, which sometimes may not be completed within a year.

These actions of BMW Motor were naturally also communicated with the technical and purchasing personnel of various home appliance manufacturers who came to visit for exchanges.

With the reputation of a foreign-funded enterprise and the coordination and arrangement by the Ministry of First Machine Building, plus the fact that BMW Motors already supplied BMW cars and its chief engineer Wu Wei was a famous professor at Huazhong University of Science and Technology who studied motors, the relevant orders were naturally implemented without any surprises.

(End of this chapter)