The Fiery Era: Becoming an Industrial Giant

Chapter 220 Why is it always Factory Director Zhou?
"Comrades, the main purpose of this meeting today is to discuss the optimization of the factory's management system."

Inside the conference room of the Second Machine Tool Plant, Deputy Director Hou, with his usual smile, addressed everyone.

He suggested the meeting to Secretary Li, who was unwilling to fight for power.

Upon hearing that Deputy Factory Director Hou had some suggestions that would benefit the factory's production management and wanted to hold a meeting to discuss them, the factory director agreed after some thought.

He's a deputy factory director, after all. If he can even veto a meeting he wants to hold, then Secretary Li feels he's going to make enemies with Deputy Factory Director Hou Yufeng.

In the meeting room, in addition to Secretary Li and the three deputy factory directors, cadres from the production department and workshop directors were also present.

"The factory is currently experiencing a very good production situation. Our factory's machine tools have won the number one foreign trade order in the country, and we will be producing CNC machine tools in large quantities in the future. We will even be participating in the Canton Fair in the autumn. This is the result of the joint efforts of all the workers and managers in the factory."

However, during the rapid development and construction of the Second Machine Tool Plant, we also need to pay attention to some issues, such as the long overtime hours for workers.

Deputy Factory Director Hou paused here, looked around the meeting room at everyone, and then continued.

"I've spent a lot of time in the factory these past few days and have come up with a lot of problems that we have to face. The first is overtime management. Currently, frontline workers are generally working 14 or 15 hours a day."

While their spirit is commendable, and many are working overtime voluntarily, will prolonged excessive overtime production affect production safety or the quality of machine tools?

"The second point is the cadre team. Our factory's cadres are the backbone of the factory."

Managers are the backbone of the factory, undertaking heavy management and technical work; however, they are currently excluded from the factory's welfare benefits and incentive mechanisms.

I think this is very unfair to the cadres, and it will also dampen their enthusiasm.

"I think it would be good to establish a special incentive mechanism for cadres, separate from front-line production rewards."

The labor program that Director Zhou mentioned is good, but it's too strict—300 hours is a bit too much. I think we could find a compromise?"

Deputy Factory Director Hou finished speaking quickly, and after he finished, some workshop directors in the meeting room shared the same sentiment.

They are cadres, but they also have to stay up late every day with the workers and keep an eye on production in the workshop.

The second point really hit home for them.

"Let's put the second point aside for now, Deputy Factory Director Hou, please explain the first point in detail."

Secretary Li began by saying, "Let's discuss each point one by one, pool our wisdom, and if we think it's appropriate, it's not that it can't be implemented in the factory."

"Alright, then I'll talk about the first point. This is a summary of my observations of production at the factory these past few days, combined with what I've seen and heard in other factories in Shanghai."

Deputy Factory Director Hou took out a document titled "Preliminary Suggestions on the Internal Production Management System of the Yohua Factory," handed it to Secretary Li, and continued, "..."
"My suggestion is to differentiate production, with the technical department dividing production tasks into three levels. The most important level A tasks should be implemented in two shifts, so that people can rest while the machines do not, allowing workers to rest without slowing down production efficiency."

Tasks of grade B are of lower importance than tasks of grade A, and are implemented with a production arrangement that alternates between three shifts and two shifts.

The others in the meeting room also listened to what Deputy Factory Director Hou said. Some of them agreed with him and felt that if this arrangement was really made, it would be quite appropriate.

If a two-shift system can be implemented, working hours can be reduced by two or three hours, and rest time can be increased by two or three hours, which would be a good thing for front-line production workers.

After reading it, Secretary Li handed the document to the others so they could take turns reading it as well.

After reading it, Deputy Factory Director Liu said thoughtfully, "Deputy Factory Director Hou, is this Rongji Electronics Factory's management regulations?"

"Now it's Jianghu Electronics Factory, Deputy Factory Director Liu, but the methods are indeed based on their management practices."

Tasks are categorized and production is categorized, but production efficiency hasn't slowed down, and workers can have more rest time. What do you think of this?

Deputy Factory Director Liu spoke up, "If that's the case..."

"My lords, I have something to say."

Section Chief Ding of the Technical Department raised his hand to indicate this, and then said, "Our factory's production tasks are actually quite difficult to divide because the factory's workers have been adjusted many times. Trained apprentices are swapped with skilled workers in branch factories because we are the main factory, and the parts we produce are technically more difficult. Some of the simpler ones have already been assigned to branch factories."

"Two or three shifts are good. If it doesn't affect production efficiency and allows workers to rest more, then I support it."

However, there's not much to categorize in terms of production tasks, because they're all quite important, and after the initial rough processing, the work is taken over by intermediate and advanced workers.

After Section Chief Ding finished speaking, he sat back down. He had only stood up to express his opinion because he felt that the high ranking was inappropriate.

Moreover, there was something Section Chief Ding didn't mention: the matter of shift rotations. Director Zhou had already thought about it and even discussed it with him.

At the time, Director Zhou felt that shift work would allow workers more time to rest, so they could produce with the best energy.

Although the total production time is reduced, the factory can accept it as long as the production efficiency remains the same.

However, after inspecting the factory, Director Zhou found that the workers on the front line had a truly strong work ethic. After more than ten hours of high-intensity production, they were still able to maintain a pass rate of over 80%.

Moreover, the product qualification rate did not decrease for a whole month.

After seeing that the product qualification rate remained consistently high, Director Zhou temporarily abandoned the idea of ​​shift work.

Ding Zhixue was well aware of this matter. After Director Zhou finished his inspection, he even calculated the costs for him, stating that working 15 hours a day was the longest working time.

If they can maintain such a high product qualification rate, then their factory has the fastest production efficiency.

Implementing shift work would actually reduce production efficiency.

If the product qualification rate drops, it means the workers are tired and the long hours of overtime have become unbearable. At that point, we should start implementing a shift system.

He seems to still have the documents from Director Zhou's inspection, but they are from several months ago. The product qualification rate has not dropped recently, so Ding Zhixue forgot about it.

Today, when Deputy Factory Director Hou mentioned this matter, he couldn't help but mention it briefly, and even then, he didn't tell the whole story.

The main problem was that Deputy Factory Director Hou was using the excuse of letting the workers get some rest, which left Ding Zhixue at a loss for words.

What Deputy Factory Director Hou didn't know was that the factory's shift system had a very strict requirement: to control the pass rate. The shift system was designed to produce more qualified products.

Secretary Li turned to Deputy Factory Director Liu Wenzhou and asked, "Deputy Factory Director Liu, you are now in charge of production management. Do you have any opinions?"

"I can't give my opinion right now."

Liu Wenzhou wanted to say something, but he felt it was a bit difficult to say, so he said, "Why don't we ask Director Zhou? Didn't Director Zhou say before he left that if there were any undecided matters in the factory, we could contact Director Ren?"

Deputy Factory Director Hou said with a smile, "There's no need to trouble Factory Director Zhou with this matter. Besides, it only needs to be implemented on a trial basis for a period of time. Contacting Factory Director Zhou would take a long time."

"Whether or not to contact Comrade Zhiqiang, we can discuss it later. We can also contact him about important production matters. Besides, the project that Comrade Zhiqiang is involved in is not an absolutely closed project."

If you can make a phone call, you can get in touch with them.

After glossing over that matter, Secretary Li continued, "So let's talk about the second thing. What do you think?"
Should we establish a separate incentive system for all the factory's cadres? Deputy Factory Director Sun, this matter has always been handled by logistics; could you explain your thoughts?

"this."

Upon hearing this, Deputy Factory Director Sun cursed inwardly. He had refused in his office last time, but he hadn't expected Deputy Factory Director Hou to be so persistent and determined to make it happen.

He didn't know how to refuse for a moment, but after seeing Liu Wenzhou beside him, he suddenly thought of something and said...

"I'm not really sure either, but the factory's incentive mechanism was set up by Director Zhou. Why don't we ask Director Zhou together?"

Upon hearing this, Deputy Factory Director Hou almost lost his smile.

Director Zhou, Director Zhou, you two are also deputy directors, don't you have any autonomy at all?
(End of this chapter)