1novels Chapter 038 This is about accumulating little by little, building a tower from grains of sand.
Chapter 038 This is about accumulating little by little, building a tower from grains of sand.
Ms. Kwan thinks radios are old-fashioned and outdated because she used to live on Hong Kong Island.
At the beginning of 1991, Hong Kong Island residents were temporarily ahead in terms of personal entertainment.
Although black and white televisions have entered thousands of households in mainland China.
The color TV market is also expanding rapidly, and the price of TVs has become more and more outrageous year by year since the CCTV's top bid was announced.
But people can't watch TV all the time, especially those who work away from home!
Countless graduates stayed in Beijing, Shanghai, and other provincial capitals, and then moved to dormitories and factories.
How did people entertain themselves before personal computers and mobile phones existed? At that stage, we didn't even have portable MP3 players!
For many migrant workers and factory workers, reading printed books and newspapers is one of their many forms of private entertainment.
A cassette recorder for listening to songs and music, and a portable mini radio that can receive many radio stations.
Countless taxis are even equipped with car radios.
By the early 2010s, car radios were so ubiquitous that you could hear drivers listening to different radio programs whenever you hailed a taxi.
Ah Hong really understands how big the market for mini portable radios is.
When she lived in the dormitory at the Shanghai Theatre Academy, her roommates and classmates bought far too many of these things.
When tape drives were the mainstream, tape expenses were also a type of expense.
The radio programs received were also very popular.
Su Nan smiled and shook his head, "What I want to make is not a traditional radio, but a radio for post-disaster emergency use."
"Last year, hundreds of thousands of people in Kansas experienced a power outage. Before the power was restored, each household had a hand-cranked radio to generate electricity."
"They will be able to receive aid more stably after the disaster, including rebuilding their homes."
"Island nations are prone to earthquakes. If someone is trapped after an earthquake, having one of these devices can help them receive broadcasts in time to prepare for aftershocks."
"Overall, people in Europe, America, and South Korea all have this kind of shopping demand."
Rosamund Kwan suddenly realized, "I know about hand-cranked generators, but aren't those all large pieces of equipment?"
Hand-cranked and small-scale human-powered power generation technologies have existed for a long time, and she never thought that something as small as a radio could generate electricity by hand-cranking it.
The thing that Lao Liang made in the mid-to-late 90s weighed less than 2 pounds.
It is more than ten centimeters long and tall, larger than the popular portable mini radios on the market.
However, their nature is different; they specialize in strategic resource reserves for natural disaster markets!
In the mid-to-late 90s, Factory Director Liang sold each unit for a few dozen US dollars.
If it were targeted at the mainland market now, it would cost at most a few hundred yuan.
When the average wage in Beijing was 220 yuan, several hundred yuan was not a small amount of money, but the nature of the goods was different.
For people who live in areas prone to natural disasters and power outages, this is a basic necessity, similar to food and drink.
Thinking back to the 91 floods? Su Nan felt that if mass industrial production could have been achieved in the first half of 91, it would have been very necessary to donate a batch.
The problem is that the mainland's industry is just starting out and has laid a solid foundation.
Various high-end spare parts need to be imported from Europe, America, and South Korea.
He then met Liang Chang and saw the assembled radio, and immediately wanted to register a large number of patents.
In the mid-to-late 90s, Lao Liang used this to go overseas and earn US dollars.
Traditional large manufacturers in Europe and America are also frantically copying our work, including producing competing products. This business deal will be negotiated and handled slowly.
The filming and production of (Kung Fu Hustle) and the preparation of (Remote Control) are proceeding simultaneously.
……
On February 2nd, Su Nan and A Hong met Director Liang in the living room of a large suite at the Peace Hotel.
This person directly unpacked it; it was released a few years ahead of schedule and is still considered a modular, hand-cranked emergency radio.
At first glance, it's a big guy, 20 centimeters long and 20 centimeters high, and it's also quite thick.
The square radio has a crank on the upper left.
Factory Director Liang coughed once, "President Su, based on your ideas and design, we have also made several attempts when starting the assembly of the individual project."
"Once the battery inside is depleted, shaking it by hand for a few minutes can keep the LED lit for an hour."
"By rotating two or three times a second for a few minutes, you can receive several minutes of radio broadcasts from the outside world."
"The product is not perfect yet, but it is basically finalized and there is a strong market demand for it."
"When the higher-ups found out, they realized that if it weren't for the fact that the spare parts required US dollars, they would have to rush to produce a batch of expedited stockpiles."
Assemble this hand-cranked radio, including the cost of buying spare parts in southern Jiangsu.
Not counting their manual assembly costs, the prices of some spare parts from the mainland are also taken into account.
The cost of this one unit is over $130.
Industrialization and mass production can drive down prices, no matter how much foundation is laid.
If you concentrate your resources on major projects, producing 1 million units would cost at least 100 million US dollars.
Only by producing all kinds of core components domestically can costs be significantly reduced.
With such an expensive foreign exchange quota, Director Liang's superiors didn't focus their efforts on savings.
Their unit didn't have that much foreign exchange either.
Liang Factory is a radio factory under the South China branch of a state-owned enterprise.
"I don't understand the field of physical production and industrial manufacturing either," said Liang, a factory worker from southern Jiangsu.
"After I register the patent in January or February, and give your company a year, what percentage of the supply chain can be localized?"
Lao Liang had considered this issue before he came: "30% within one year, over 60% within three years."
"This also involves allocating resources to concentrate efforts on major tasks."
Hurricanes, earthquakes, and floods are not unique to the United States and island nations.
As soon as Director Liang started recruiting talent and forming a team, those who needed to know about this thing gradually came to understand its strategic significance.
Miniature permanent magnet generators are still in their infancy in mainland China, where large-scale models are more common.
Miniature speed-increasing gearboxes have very high requirements for the precision of metal gears and precision bearing technology.
Then there are requirements for high-efficiency rectifier diodes, low-dropout voltage regulator circuits, and charging management circuits.
This involves the area where Europe and the US shield mid-to-high-end industrial technologies.
Su Nan chatted with Director Liang for a while, including having lunch together, before driving back to the film set.
Rosamund Kwan asked curiously in the car, "Since it's a necessity, are you planning to wait a year or two in mainland China, or open a factory in Taiwan?"
Whether it earns $2 or $10 per unit.
After one or two years, stable sales of one million units will translate to annual profits of several million dollars.
Thinking about it this way, Sister Guan was once again quite shocked; her talent in film and television creation was truly remarkable.
Besides film and television, are there so many other ways to make money in southern Jiangsu? No wonder he was confident and assured that he could start filming (The Matrix) in 94.
They all need to invest four or five hundred million Hong Kong dollars in special effects; it's a matter of accumulating small amounts into a great achievement.
Su Nan shook his head, "I haven't confirmed it yet. Theoretically, in terms of building goodwill, the mainland will still be short of foreign exchange even in a year or two."
"Building a factory in mainland China would be more meaningful if we could make money together."
If he collaborates with the mainland, his Hong Kong businessman status will be highly valuable for the next ten years.
Ten years from now? Southern Jiangsu will certainly have plenty of other wealth.
Just like he once told Hung Kam-po, "You have enough influence that Hong Kong spends over HK$100 billion annually to buy massive amounts of daily necessities from the mainland."
This has always been settled in Hong Kong dollars, and the money that slips through the cracks in their fingers is enough to feed a private company.
Exchanging US dollars openly and honestly is no big deal.
This is similar to film and television copyrights; once you secure global patents, you can earn a substantial amount of US dollars every year without lifting a finger.
Today is the 18th day of the twelfth lunar month, and the crew of the "Northern Little New Year" film crew will have a holiday in a few days.