Journey 1995:Non-Stop

Chapter 309 Equipment Purchase
Yan Hui never expected that he would receive a call from his supervisor the day after submitting the materials.

Shandong Province has some bureaucratic bureaucracy, something Yan Hui has experienced many times, but he didn't expect it to happen so quickly this time. According to the leader's instructions, as long as he spends the money to purchase the equipment, the project can be approved.

Yan Hui judged that it must be because he wrote down the reasons for choosing Linzi High-tech Zone and Quancheng High-tech Zone in the "Site Planning" section of his report.

If Yan Hui goes to Linzi High-tech Zone, not only will the district leaders pay attention, but the city leaders will also take it seriously when the factory is built later. That's for sure. No mayor of a prefecture-level city would be unaware of the situation of factories with an output value of over 10 million yuan in their city (20 years ago), and they would definitely come to conduct a thorough investigation.

Therefore, as an investor, Yan Hui doesn't necessarily have to choose Jinan. Having autonomy makes things easier.

The next day, Yan Hui returned to the area and met directly with the deputy district head in charge of industry. This leader was very familiar with the relevant procedures. Although he did not understand polyurethane, he was very knowledgeable about the petrochemical field and gave Yan Hui a lot of advice.

Next to the deputy district head were several accompanying personnel who sat there silently.

"In terms of technology, Mr. Yan's talent pool is already quite impressive. I've taken a look at Mr. Yan's plan. What are your thoughts on the funding aspect?"

"The initial equipment investment is over 100 million yuan, and I have cash in my account right now. For the subsequent factory construction, I have 500 million yuan in pre-construction funds. In addition, I will have some friends investing, but I haven't made a specific figure for the amount. Of course, this is all on the premise that the experiment is successful. If the experiment doesn't yield results, the project will have to be delayed." Yan Hui said this without being entirely confident.

He won't be unable to come up with 500 million, but if he wants to, he'll definitely have to sell everything he owns and gamble everything.

"It seems that Mr. Yan has a clear plan, but I wonder what his views are on the polyurethane market?" the leader asked again.

"I'm not sure about the future either, but the market is always right." Yan Hui didn't mince words.

When communicating with your superiors, you should discuss the investment amount, scale, and staffing level, and then discuss what you need. The only thing you don't need to discuss in detail is how to make money, as your superiors don't really care about that.

Whether you can make money is your business; the most important thing is that you can handle taxes and labor.

"Hmm, it seems Mr. Yan is a mature entrepreneur. Our district had a meeting yesterday, and the leadership team is very supportive of this project. The district can promise that as long as Mr. Yan invests, experiments, and introduces talent according to the plan, the district will provide the necessary permits and talent subsidies. Moreover, once your doctoral exchange station is established, we will also contact the science and engineering universities in the province to conduct academic exchanges, provide guidance, and train undergraduate and graduate students." As the leader spoke, he took out a pile of materials.

These materials weren't specifically targeted at Yan Hui; they were materials prepared in advance by the district for attracting investment and were publicly available. However, the leaders clearly put a lot of thought into selecting these materials for Yan Hui.

"I didn't expect the leaders of our High-tech Zone to attach so much importance to this. I promise I will do my best!" Yan Hui also expressed his stance.

"I'll arrange for Section Chief Liu to handle the follow-up matters. This is my personal phone number; feel free to contact me anytime if needed." The leader wrote down a phone number and handed it to Yan Hui. "Your number is in the project proposal; I've already saved it. I have a meeting in a bit, so I'll go ahead and get busy. We're all looking forward to the day when President Yan builds the factory."

After saying that, the leader left. After the leader left, the remaining people immediately gathered around and began to provide Yan Hui with preliminary "planning guidance". It was at this time that Yan Hui realized that the company he was going to start was considered a legitimate high-tech enterprise in the district.

The high-tech zone has a huge demand for high-tech enterprises. Generally speaking, most of them require leaders to travel around and try to win them over, since attracting investment is directly linked to the leader's performance. Any leader would be overjoyed if someone like Yan Hui came to them uninvited.

Before yesterday, these leaders didn't even know what single-component polyurethane sealant was. But after half a day of research and understanding the new national standard, they realized that it was an environmentally friendly and advanced material, a true high-tech product.

Once Yan Hui's laboratory is completed, the top two leaders in the district will definitely come to visit it.

In terms of policy and support, Yan Hui felt no pressure; his next step was to buy the equipment.

This is definitely not his forte, because it's not woodworking equipment; he's a complete novice and can only rely on professionals like Chen Jian.

Through numerous and lengthy communications, Yan Hui has gained a general understanding of the process.

The first piece of equipment needed is a reactor, which is the core piece of equipment. The polymerization reaction of materials such as polyether polyols and isocyanates needs to be carried out in the reactor. This equipment can control the temperature, pressure, and atmosphere (nitrogen protection). The reactor is not a piece of equipment specifically made for polyurethane; it is a common piece of equipment in many chemical fields.

The second device is called a vacuum dehydrator, which can deeply dehydrate some raw materials. Water molecules react with the (-NCO) groups in isocyanates, affecting the quality.

The third device can be understood as a stirring system, but it is different from stirring. It should be called a mixing and dispersion system. It can add various catalysts to the synthesized prepolymer and ensure "uniform mixing" through efficient mixing and dispersion.

The fourth piece of equipment is a filter, and the fifth piece of equipment is a bottling machine.

These are the essential core devices, and then there's a whole host of supporting equipment.

Storage system, cooling system, heating system, material conveying system, control system, computing system.
It sounds simple, but you'll know how difficult it is when you actually do it.

A single reactor can hold at least several hundred liters of raw materials, and there are countless possible ratios within it. Even a slight error can lead to disqualification. In industrial production, replacing a completely different set of equipment requires multiple adjustments, even with a seasoned technician. In fact, even if Yan Hui's laboratory produces a finished product, his factory will still need to conduct the experiments again once it goes into production—it will just be simpler and more certain that it can be successfully replicated.

Over the next two months, Chen Jian followed Yan Hui around, buying most of the necessary equipment. These things were really hard to negotiate prices for, and it was also hard to get discounts. Just as Yan Hui had expected, 70 yuan had already been spent.

Because what everyone is working on is new, there isn't much used equipment; 80% of the equipment in the entire lab is new.

(End of this chapter)