Chapter 138 No Way to Start
As Tang Zifeng said, Military Industry Factory 432, which undertook the CNC transformation of 40 imported machine tools in 17 institutes, was facing a gluttonous feast with no way to start. The value of this business exceeds 4 million, but Factory 432 is a bit overwhelmed.
"What's going on? Still can't find out the cause?"
In Workshop No. 205 of the 17th Institute, Gu Yuan, the chief engineer of the 432 Factory, shouted in a low voice at his subordinates Xu Ping and Zhang Guoqing. At the same time, he secretly glanced at several engineers of the 17th Institute not far away for fear of being heard by them. .
Military Industry 432 Factory is an enterprise specializing in the research and manufacturing of CNC machine tools in the military industry system. During the years when foreign countries blocked China's high-tech industrial equipment, Factory 432 relied on its own strength to develop more than a dozen industrial control chips, which were assembled on several large machine tools and produced some of China's earliest CNC machine tools. , and used in the production practice of important military industry sectors.
After the relationship between China and the West improved, Factory 432 introduced some semiconductor manufacturing equipment and industrial control chip design technologies and patents from Japan, Germany, the United States and other countries. Its chip development capabilities were greatly improved, and the performance of some of the industrial control chips it produced was similar to The mainstream industrial control chips in the West are almost the same.
Then, just when Factory 432 was planning to develop its ambitions, the country began to reduce military industry funding. The production tasks of Factory 432 were severely reduced, and it was almost unable to make ends meet. Due to tight funding, employee benefits continued to decline, and many employees left one after another. The remaining employees also complained, making the factory director feel a lot of pressure.
It’s not like Factory 432 has never thought about self-rescue. Like many military-industrial enterprises at that time, Factory 432 took advantage of its own advantages to develop civilian products. It successively produced tape recorders, washing machines, air conditioners and other products. However, due to various reasons, not only did it not make a profit, but it also lost a large amount of original investment, which made the company's situation worse. Adding insult to injury.
This time, the leaders of Factory 432 put on an old face and contacted the Chutian 17th Institute to jointly apply to the Science and Technology Commission for a technical transformation fund of 5 million yuan to renovate a batch of old machine tools from the 17th Institute. The most important one is to use the industrial control chip independently developed by 432 Factory to carry out CNC transformation on 40 ordinary machine tools imported in the 1980s. As for Factory 17, which added some private goods when applying for funds and hoped to renovate a batch of old domestic machine tools, Factory 432 was too lazy to care. This is not an area they are good at. Factory 17 is willing to find other companies to do it, but Factory 432 doesn't care.
Factory 432 produced CNC machine tools in the early years to fill the domestic gap and break the foreign blockade of CNC machine tools in China. As long as everything has political significance, economic considerations are less important. The CNC machine tools produced by Factory 432 are more expensive than imported machine tools, but their production efficiency is not as good as imported machine tools, so they are not very competitive in the market. This is also the reason why we started with refurbishing machine tools this time, rather than coaxing companies affiliated to the Science and Technology Commission to purchase machine tools produced by them.
Gu Yuan is the chief engineer of Factory 432 and is considered one of the top electronic technology experts in China. More than a dozen industrial control chips of Factory 432 were successfully developed under his leadership. After the Science and Technology Commission approved the renovation plan jointly proposed by the two companies and allocated 5 million yuan in funds, Gu Yuan brought a team to Institute 17 and began to study the renovation plan for the imported machine tools.
The machine tools imported by 17 were also introduced after the overall improvement of relations between China and the West. Of course, there were fully CNC machine tools on the international market at that time, but the price of CNC machine tools was more than twice as high as ordinary machine tools. When the country's funds were very tight, especially when there was a serious shortage of foreign exchange, it was certainly not convenient for 17 institutes to choose CNC machine tools. machine tools, but chose a batch of ordinary machine tools.
The processing capabilities and processing accuracy of these imported machine tools are far better than those of domestic machine tools. Once put into production, they became the main machine tools of the 17th Institute. After more than ten years of use, some machine tools have also shown wear and tear. In addition, against the background of the continuous popularity of CNC machine tools, these ordinary machine tools appear to be somewhat outdated, and the production efficiency cannot keep up with the production requirements of the 17 Institute.
For Institute 17, the best option is of course to apply for funds from the state to import new CNC machine tools, but the institute leaders also know that such a request is unlikely to be approved by the Science and Technology Commission. An imported grinder is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, which is equivalent to more than 3 million yuan in RMB. How can the country get this money? At this time, Factory 432 came to the door, promising to help No. 17 transform the original ordinary machine tools into CNC machine tools. By the way, it could also repair worn parts and restore the production capacity of the equipment.
The leaders of Institute 17 were actually doubtful about whether Factory 432 could do this. But people came to the door, and they didn’t need 17 institutes to pay. They just asked 17 institutes to sign the application form. Why wouldn’t the institute leaders do it? If the Science and Technology Commission agrees to pay for the refurbishment of machine tools, Factory 432 will help 17th Institute convert these imported machine tools into CNC machine tools. After all, 17th Institute will still benefit.
In this way, the two units jointly submitted a plan. The 17th Institute has also used some Spring and Autumn writing methods. For example, they believe that refurbishing machine tools is a benefit at no cost. With a few million dollars, machine tools that cost hundreds of millions of yuan to import can be given a new life and can replace new imports. Benefit the country and the people, and so on. The Science and Technology Commission also thought this was a good idea, so they allocated the money.
Of course, there is another reason for the Science and Industry Committee to do this, that is, it knows that Factory 432 is about to be out of business, and it is necessary to find a way to subsidize them. This reason, of course, will not be written in official documents.
CNC transformation of ordinary machine tools is considered a fashionable thing nowadays, and many companies will do this when they engage in internal innovation. However, there is no ready-made model for how each machine tool should be equipped with CNC modules, and engineers can only go to the site to explore. Gu Yuan brought people to No. 17 to explore this model. By the way, when Tang Zifeng and the others came to the 17th Institute, Gu Yuanran and others had been staying in the 17th Institute for almost a month.
In the past month, Gu Yuan was in a good mood for the first ten days. He comprehensively inspected the 40 machine tools that 17 institutes hoped to transform and put forward some ideas for transformation, which were well received by engineers from 17 institutes headed by Xiao Ming. Both the host and the guest enjoyed themselves happily and had a happy dinner together no less than five times.
But all this changed when engineers from Factory 432 removed the spindle bearing of an imported grinder and planned to observe whether there was any wiring space inside the fuselage. It was quite smooth when the spindle bearing was removed, but it was even more difficult to put it back together.
No, after a group of people struggled for seven or eight days, they still couldn't put the bearing back into the correct position. Instead, there was a slight deviation from the original position. The grinder is for precision machining, and the bearings were installed misaligned. It was difficult to guarantee the basic dimensional parameters during machining, let alone precision. This would have cost Gu Yuanyuan his life.
"When you dismantled it, didn't you pay attention to where it should be installed?" Gu Yuan asked his subordinates.
"We paid attention to the line drawn on it. But the problem now is that we have no way to install the bearing back to this place perfectly. No matter how we install it, one end will deviate from this line." Female Engineer Xu Ping said with red eyes. It's not that her eyes were red from crying, but she spent several days in front of this grinder, staring at the position of the bearing every day, which made her eyes red.
"What the hell, how did the Germans put it in in the first place? Why can't they put it back together once it's taken off?" Tanihara muttered.
Zhang Guoqing reminded: "Mr. Gu, I think there must be some skill involved. If we are so reckless now, if the bearing or bearing hole is worn, it will be troublesome."
"Of course I know." Gu Yuanran said angrily, "But what is the trick behind this? Do you understand it?"
"No..." Zhang Guoqing said with a grimace, "Mr. Gu, I majored in electronics. I'm not good at machinery."
"Xiao Xu, you come from a mechanical background, do you see any problems?" Gu Yuan asked Xu Ping again.
Xu Ping, who has already entered the fifth grade, can still be called "Xiao Xu" in Gu Yuan's mouth. If compared with Tang Zifeng, calling her "aunt" is not an exaggeration. She shook her head and said: "What Xiao Zhang said makes sense. The Germans' machine tool assembly methods are different from ours. We didn't pay attention and took the bearing apart and tried to put it back again, but it was difficult. I I'm wondering if the Germans have any special tools. If we don't have this tool, I'm afraid we won't be able to put it back together."
"What should we do?" Gu Yuan asked.
Xu Ping suggested: "How about we check the information at home and see if we can find any inspiration. Let's put down this grinder first and study the cyclone mill."
The so-called "home" refers to the main factory of Factory 432. They were guests at No. 17, and even if they tried to find some information, they couldn't find it. There is a lot of information in the data room of Factory 432, including some foreign machine tool journals. If you arrange for someone to check it out, you may be able to find some tips on installing bearings. Of course, if you can't find relevant content from the factory's information, you may have to arrange for someone to go to the capital to find other information. This is something that the factory needs to coordinate.
Gu Yuan also knew that haste makes waste. He also came from an electronics background. Although he was no stranger to machinery, he didn't have to worry about things that Xu Ping said he couldn't do. He said: "It seems that we can only call back and ask our family to arrange for someone to check the information. However, when we said we were going to dismantle this grinder, we had agreed with the 17th Institute to dismantle it and take a look. Just put it back for them. Now that I can't put it back, what should I tell Mr. Xiao?"
"I can only tell the truth." Zhang Guoqing said, "Actually, we have been struggling here for several days, and their people can see clearly from the side. Although they didn't ask us directly, they probably saved us face. Well. If we pretend to be confused, we won’t be aboveboard enough.”
"Alas, it seems that I can only tell the truth to Mr. Xiao." Gu Yuan sighed.
After eight classes, I will update one chapter when I come back. After eating, continue typing. Cheng Zi is so handsome and works so hard, shouldn't everyone show it to him?