Organic Farm Author: Farmer is flying

Chapter 88 Research and Development

The time has come to the middle of June, and in the midst of the busyness, half a year is almost over in the blink of an eye. The wheat harvest on the North China Plain is in full swing and is about to come to an end.

This year's wheat harvest was much easier than usual. The small rice and wheat harvester produced by Guangming Machinery Company has shown great power this year and has shared a lot of work for this year's wheat harvest season.

By the end of May, more than 10,000 harvesters had been sold, and a similar number of corn and bean seeders had been sold. By now, the large-scale sales of two types of small agricultural machinery have slowly slowed down with the end of the wheat harvest season. The focus of machinery company production has begun to shift to small corn harvesters.

This wheat harvest season is the first concentrated explosive profit period of machinery companies, in three months, the total sales of harvesters, on-demand planters, ridge mulching machines and other three main machinery reached 200 million yuan, to achieve a gross profit of 110 million yuan. Of course, most of this money was invested in the construction of the company's production line and the development of cotton pickers.

This spring is also an all-round test of the management ability, quality assurance ability, logistics system and other aspects of the machinery company. In the high-intensity production that lasted for a quarter, many problems were exposed, and with the joint efforts of the management team, they were solved one by one. Under the tempering of this high-intensity production, the progress of the company's management team is obvious. In particular, the production management team led by Director Ding and the production process and standardization team led by Jiang Xiaoguang have achieved outstanding results.

Jiang Jianbing's sales team, the achievements are needless to say. Moreover, as the general manager of the company, he actively pays attention to the overall development of the company, coordinates the relationship between various departments, and participates in the formulation of the company's development strategy.

At work, Jiang Jianbing gradually realized the lack of his basic management knowledge, took the spring college entrance examination in March, and was admitted to the in-service college class of the National People's Congress as he wished, holding books and reading non-stop every day. In the company, he fully supported the certification work and pre-certification training of a Hong Kong certification company that Jiang Xiaoguang contacted, and took the lead in participating in the training. Now that the formal external audit of the quality system certification is about to begin, the whole company is immersed in a tense atmosphere of preparing for the audit.

The new R&D center office building has been completed, and the development team led by Gong Lihua, which has expanded to more than 70 people, has settled in the new office building. The new four-storey office building has a pure white exterior and is a very modern building.

The first floor is a conventional laboratory, which is used for basic tests in mechanics, metallographic, electronics, etc.

On the second floor is the New Agricultural Machinery Development Department, which is responsible for the development of new agricultural machinery.

On the third floor is the Cotton Picker Research Room, where the development and design of all cotton picker projects are carried out.

On the fourth floor, there are functional comprehensive service departments such as a reference room, an archive room, and a large conference room.

Behind the office building, there is a special workshop, which is a special trial production workshop and a complete machine laboratory for the R&D center. The trial production workshop is mainly equipped with various general processing equipment and CNC equipment. At present, the trial production workshop also processes some process equipment for the new agricultural machinery production line.

The development of cotton pickers has been carried out in full swing. The demonstration of the direction of development has been completed, and the idea of the simultaneous development of small machines, imitation machines, and new concept machines proposed by Tagawa has been affirmed.

Now that the design of the small one-person cotton picker has begun, the development plan formulated by the project team is to harvest and verify the manual functional prototype in the middle of the cotton picking season in October.

The imitation machine is also progressing relatively smoothly, and one of the two John Deere cotton pickers has been disassembled and is in the process of replicating the design. The design is divided into three large sections at the same time.

One is the development of the cotton picker, the core component of the cotton picker. This part is the operating part of the cotton picker to complete the plucking of the open cotton from the cotton plant and put it into the conveyor system. The difficulty in the development of cotton picking head lies in the reliability of various precise actions in high-speed cotton picking, the durability of precision parts, and the cooling and fire prevention in high-speed work.

One is the development of power and chassis. Like John Deere 9965 five-line cotton picker, the engine power has reached more than 400 horsepower, such a high-power diesel engine, only a few diesel engine factories in China can produce, and a reasonable selection is required. With such a huge equipment, the advantages and disadvantages of chassis design will directly determine the overall design rationality of the cotton picker in the future. Judging from the results of the inquiry, there is no ready-made chassis to choose from, and you need to develop it yourself. Gong Lihua is ready to cooperate with large tractor factories or automobile factories for the development of this part, and is currently negotiating cooperation or commissioned development with Jinan Heavy Duty Truck and Tianjin Tractor Factory.

One is the development of other structures and control systems. Tagawa plans to integrate the baling function into the cotton picker to free up a large proportion of the working time occupied by the complex unloading operation and improve work efficiency. This makes the already complex control system even more complex. The integrated control of multiple systems, including vehicle control, cotton transmission, pressing and baling, cotton bale unloading, cotton picking head control, etc., requires a complex set of control systems, involving hydraulic control, program control, vehicle control and other aspects of human-computer interaction. Multiple functional modules that are divided at the same time also need to be developed separately.

It can be said that the development of the entire cotton picker is a huge system project, which cannot be completed overnight. Gong Lihua, who was optimistic about the three-year prototype proposed by Tian Chuan at the beginning, also began to be cautious.

Wei Wenqiang has returned to China in May and officially joined the cotton picker development project as the company's chief engineer. Through more than a month of cooperation, he has completely won Gong Lihua's recognition, and the two have cooperated very well.

Tian Chuan also bought two cotton pickers made in the former Soviet Union from Russia through Li Tao's connections and dismantled one of them. The working principle of the Soviet cotton picker is different from that of the American machine, the net picking rate is slightly lower, and the efficiency of cotton picking is not high, but it is cheaper.

Tian Chuan asked the R&D center to transport the two intact cotton pickers to Xijiang Province, where there is the country's largest concentrated cotton planting base, by September. Tian Chuan registered and set up an agricultural machinery service company in Shihezi, signed an agreement with cotton growers in advance to contract cotton picking services, or purchase cotton in the field, and has purchased more than 5,000 acres of cotton field harvesting rights, and is still buying, he hopes to get about 30,000 acres of cotton field harvesting rights this year, which is used to verify the actual working conditions of the two cotton pickers, and obtain sufficient first-hand data for the development of cotton pickers.

As for the research and development of the new concept of innovative cotton picker, it is still in the pre-research stage, and the designers are not yet fully in place, but have only carried out some theoretical data review and exploration of the general development direction. Tian Chuan asked that the work in this area should not be rushed, at least wait until the cotton picking season, and then decide on the development direction after actually understanding the characteristics of cotton and the advantages and disadvantages of the existing cotton picker operation.

The development of new agricultural machinery is in progress, and the corn thresher, spraying machine, tree pit machine, fruit picking and pruning machine, rice transplanting machine, and melon grain picking machine are under development.

Among them, the melon pick-up machine has been put into trial on the farm in Tian Chuan's hometown, and the trial effect is good, and Jiang Jianbing has begun to sell it. The current sales situation is not too good, and in more than a month, less than ten units have been sold. Tagawa knows that these kinds of machinery, except for the rice transplanting machine, the sales effect of other products will not be too good, and only the simplest tree pit machine may sell better. However, the general characteristics of these agricultural machinery are simple structure, easy design, low manufacturing cost, and no or very few simple molds are needed, which can be used to fill the production task gap in the off-season.

In the end, Tian Chuan put forward a new sales requirement for Jiang Jianbing, that is, to set his sights on outside North China and sell the agricultural machinery products in his hands to the whole country. At the same time, it is necessary to actively inspect the production characteristics of various localities, investigate the production needs of the vast number of peasants, and point out the direction for the development of new products.

In addition, Tian Chuan specifically asked Jiang Jianbing to pay attention to the situation of competitors, strengthen the analysis of competitors, and take timely measures to eliminate the competitive threat to Guangming Company.

Tian Chuan's last request to Jiang Jianbing is to appropriately adjust the sales policy, increase the sales preferential range, expand off-season sales, balance the production of agricultural machinery throughout the year, increase the total annual sales volume, and at the same time ease the production pressure in the peak season. The benefits of this will not only improve profits, but also help Factory Manager Ding relieve the management pressure of peak season production.

Before leaving, Tagawa often mentioned the issue of safety in a regular voice. In response to this question, he made several important points:

The first is personal safety. He required that all positions in the company should conduct hazard assessments, establish strict safety production operation specifications, and strictly implement them. Once violations are discovered, they must be severely punished and must not be tolerated. At the same time, if a safety liability accident occurs, no matter what the severity is, the punishment must be carried out to the top, starting with Jiang Jianbing, the general manager, and punishing it level by level until the person directly responsible.

Second, it is necessary to formulate a strict overtime management system to strictly prevent fatigue work. No one is allowed to work more than 12 hours in the company continuously, and under special circumstances, the time is allowed to be extended to 14 hours with the approval of the deputy general manager-level leader. Once the work continues beyond this time, the full bonus of the person concerned for the month will be deducted.

Third, strengthen fire prevention and anti-theft work. Now the company's business is getting busier and busier, and there are more and more fire hazards, so it is necessary to actively cooperate with the fire management department to strictly investigate fire hazards, rectify fire protection facilities, establish fire emergency plans, conduct fire drills, and establish amateur fire brigades. Prevent fires.

At the same time, the popularity of the company's business will also attract the covetousness of criminals. It is necessary to strengthen security patrols to prevent the occurrence of theft accidents. At the same time, when the company pays wages, it is necessary to cancel the system of cash payment and change it to the method of direct payment of salary passbook to avoid potential safety hazards caused by a large amount of cash.

Fourth, the rainy season is coming, to strengthen the flood prevention work, all workshops, departments, and other important buildings within the factory area, to prepare waterproof sandbags to prevent water from flooding into the room and causing losses. It is necessary to prepare emergency plans, arrange a system for leaders to be on duty, and make good preparations for flood prevention.