Australian Storm 1876

  Chapter 804 BMW Truck

  Ocean Empire’s urban development and construction standards are still relatively high, which level of urban construction belongs to, then in the initial stage of planning and construction, which level of construction standards will be implemented.

  For example, for urban arterial roads, there are express stipulations on the standards for first-tier cities and third-tier cities, and it is enough to implement them accordingly.

  How wide is the green belt, the central isolation belt, and the length and width of the main drainage channel in the first-class city? What is the height? There are standards for how deep the sewers are.

  According to the status of Duke of Wright, Wright Island can have up to one second-level standard city, and several third-level, fourth-level, and fifth-level cities.

  The appropriation of the Ministry of Internal Affairs is also determined on this scale, and then divided into 10 or 15 years of sequential appropriation, but this is not the total funding for the construction, it is about 30%, and the remaining part must be self-raised.

   Therefore, the standard of towns to be built by the Duke of Wright is much higher than that of the new towns in the Legazpi area, and the initial investment is naturally much higher. Even if it is to introduce private capital, the pressure is also great.

   Needless to say, such a construction principle must be set by your majesty, and no one can change it.

  Build more beautifully if you have money, and simpler if you don’t have money.

  From here, we can also see whether the prince’s ability and level are the materials for governing the country.

  At the beginning of 1901, three major events happened in the world.

  On January 22, Queen Victoria, who ruled the British Empire for 64 years, died in London. The British Empire was in extreme grief. They lost the king who led the empire to its heyday and the light to sail forward.

The 50th and 60th anniversary of Queen Victoria's accession to the throne, the British Empire held an unprecedented grand ceremony to celebrate. How joyful it was at that time, how sad it was at this time. The emperors, kings, dukes, princes and princesses of all Europe gathered in London to mourn. This great monarch.

The United Kingdom held a grand state funeral for it. It can be said that the emperors gathered together, including Kaiser Wilhelm II, Governor-General Campbell IX of Canada, King Gustav VI of Sweden, Queen Victoria of Spain, and King George V of England. , The Crown Prince of the Ocean Kingdom and so on gathered together, unprecedented grand occasion.

  February 5, 1901

   Pierpont Morgan bought several iron ore mines under the Rockefeller family and all of Andrew Carnegie’s steel business, and merged them into the largest steel company in Citi, controlling 65% of the country’s steel output.

  This world-renowned merger and acquisition is valued at US$1 billion, forming an unprecedented trust monopoly in the industrial field of Citigroup, which has a watershed historical significance.

  The third thing, in the Gengzi national crisis, the European and American allied forces proposed a huge compensation of 450 million taels of silver.

The beginning of the 20th century of the world was not peaceful. Eurasia and Africa were full of turmoil and wars. The development of the industrial revolution stimulated the appetite of monopoly companies. An imperfect society could not restrict the behemoths. Trust companies that emerged in Citigroup took possession of it. Monopoly profits.

  The DuPont Group in the chemical industry, the Morgan Steel Consortium in the steel industry, the Rockefeller Group in the petrochemical industry, and the reborn Citigroup General Electric Company are all giants in the industry, occupying more than half of the market.

  People do not realize that monopolistic enterprises will restrict market competition, restrict technological progress, and obtain excess profits through monopoly.

  Perhaps a small number of social elites are aware of this serious problem, but their strength is not enough to prevent the birth of trust enterprises. This is a painful stage that capital society must go through.

  In the Ocean Empire, there is no such problem. The royal family fund participates in large enterprises, and in fact plays the role of a large state-owned enterprise, guiding the economic development of the empire. Under the constraints of the board of directors, management and shareholders, the operation is relatively smooth.

  In the petrochemical field, Ocean Empire has developed dozens of oil companies headed by the Big Three, including United Petroleum Corporation, Kalimantan Petroleum Corporation, and Nanyang Petroleum Corporation.

  In the tobacco industry, with hundreds of cigarette factories and more cigarette brands, covering high, middle and low grade cigarettes, the market is fully competitive.

  In the field of wool textiles, it has formed a competition pattern with Honghe Wool Spinning General Factory as the leading enterprise and dozens of large and small textile mills. There are many brands, strong choices, and world-class competitiveness.

  In the financial field, with the Imperial Reserve Bank as the management institution, it has formed a pattern of hundreds of banks and financial institutions headed by the four kings of Huitong Bank, Shangri-La Bank, Wells Fargo Bank and Huiyuan Bank.

  In the field of machinery and automobile manufacturing, a pattern of numerous supporting machinery factories and more than a dozen auto manufacturers has also formed. This has allowed the market to flourish and technological innovations continue to emerge.

  The biggest bright spot in the automobile manufacturing field comes from a machinery factory established by a German citizen. This factory is called "Feima Steel Components Company". It was originally an enterprise specializing in automobile chassis beams and supplied Futian and Xinghui Automobile Plants.

The owner of this company, Frederick Schmidt, is a senior senior engineer. He was originally a German citizen residing in Detroit, USA. He has more than 20 years of experience in the industry. Later he was attracted by the booming auto industry in Australia. This is an unprecedented development opportunity, so I came to Australia to open this company that makes automobile beams.

  In order to obtain equal citizenship treatment and avoid discrimination in taxation and industrial and commercial aspects of enterprises, Friedrich Schmidt abandoned Citi's citizenship and chose to be naturalized as Ocean Empire.

  In business operations

  It is often necessary to use heavy tractors to transport material composites. Whether it is a small 4-wheel tractor or a heavy tractor, Mr. Friedrich Schmidt feels that it is inconvenient to use.

  Nothing else, these tractors are all agricultural machinery in the final analysis. From the beginning of the design, they were not prepared for long-distance freight at all. Some of the tires have serious problems.

  For example, high fuel consumption, incomplete combustion, no glass windshield for long-distance transportation, poor man-machine functions, harsh driving environment, fragile parts and components, etc., do not meet the requirements of use.

  Every day, the tractor drivers in the factory are all greasy and greasy, their faces are black and gray, and their hands are always black. Long-distance transportation is even more troublesome, and it is common for them to drop anchor on the road.

  Due to design reasons, the water tank equipped on the tractor is generally small and has poor cooling capacity for the machine. Basically, the water tank needs to be filled with water after running for one or two hours, otherwise it will cause the engine to overheat.

  This is not a problem on the farm, anyway, you can find ponds and streams at your doorstep.

  But in long-distance transportation, where can I find water everywhere?

  This is simply impossible.

  There are also poor tractor braking capabilities. Frequent braking during long-distance transportation often causes the friction lining to be scrapped. There is no room for improvement in this problem. Only spare parts are replaced.

   Normally, tractors are not used too frequently. Generally, they are used more during busy periods of farming. They are maintained during slack periods, and they are sufficient for use as agricultural machinery.

  However, it is used as a long-distance freight, and it does not stop all year round, and various problems emerge in an endless stream, making the head of the person big.

  Therefore, Mr. Friedrich Schmidt had the idea of ​​designing a special truck. From the perspective of social material transportation needs, this new product should have a large market.

Considering that the development of a truck requires a lot of money, in June 1898, Mr. Friedrich-Schmidt applied for the project to the Imperial Scientific Research Support Fund in the name of "Pegasus Steel Component Company" and received a sum of 3.5. Wan Jinyang's scientific research support funds.

  Frederich-Schmidt immediately formed a research and development team to start research on freight cars, and received additional research budgets twice in 1899 and 1900, and successfully developed a 1.5-dwt car.

  The project received strong support from the German community, and successfully received capital injection from the Royal Family Fund, which was used to purchase equipment, purchase sites and expand the factory building, and produced the first mass-produced truck in early 1901.

  "Feima Steel Components Company" was renamed "BMW Motor Company". This 1.5-ton BMW car was welcomed by the market as soon as it was put on the market, and orders flew in like snow flakes.

  The same new field has also attracted the attention of many other auto manufacturers, who have invested in the development of their own freight cars. This is something to be said.

BMW adopts a 1.6-liter inline 4-cylinder gasoline engine, uses an innovative large water tank, and forced heat exchange through a water pump, which greatly reduces various failures caused by overheating of the engine, and has taken a big step in the field of automobile development. .

  The car is equipped with a small DC generator, which can generate electricity when the car is running, and provides electricity for the two headlights of the car, which greatly enhances the safety of night driving. This is another innovative invention.

  The most important thing is that this car completely separates the driving area from the cargo area, and equips the driver with a windshield and compartment. Even if it rains, there is no need to worry about being drenched. It is also equipped with a manual wiper, which allows the driver to wipe the rain back and forth with his hands, and he can still drive on rainy days.

  Various advantages, the 1.5-ton BMW freight car was widely welcomed as soon as it first appeared. Various orders came in and made great commercial success.

   "Lockes, how many cars can you produce this month?"

   "Mr. Schmidt, the factory has been working overtime. It is estimated that 120 cars will be produced this month, and no more than 123 cars will be produced."

   "Oh, how can we sell at this speed? We have accumulated too many orders, and we can't finish them in three years."

"Mr. Nothing, you can see that thousands of workers in the factory are busy. If you want to increase production, you can only increase manpower, equipment, and space. These Chinese are the best workers, as good as German workers. "

   "Well, Lox, I will think of another way."

  Looking at the back of the production supervisor Locks, Mr. Frederick-Schmidt shook his head irritably, and began to walk along the factory area, feel here, look there, and sometimes give some guidance.

  He is a rigorous German engineer, rigid and punctual, and meticulous. He is extremely demanding on product quality and will always be praised by partners.

There is no assembly line in this era. There are many workers around the production of a car. Almost every car produced is surrounded by about 10 workers. Some are installing chassis parts, some are installing leaf springs, and some are hoisting. In the cab, some parts are being cleaned and buttered to prepare for installation.

  Everyone is busy, but it takes thousands of parts to assemble a car. Simply **** all kinds of screws is a big project. If you make a mistake, you will have to rework, and it will not be efficient.

  Mr. Friedrich-Schmidt’s BMW factory has more than 2,700 people and is still hiring employees. More than 400 people are studying in the training course, which is still not enough.

There are many matching truck parts that are completely unavailable in the market. Therefore, there are cab workshops, water tank workshops, special leaf spring workshops, wheel friction plate workshops, etc., as well as transportation teams, canteens, bathhouses, and so on. There are a lot of administrative staff.

  His BMW factory is not that big. The largest Australian General Machinery Company has 87,000 workers, Volkswagen has more than 50,000 workers, and Dongfanghong Machinery has 4.3 workers. These are all well-known large companies at home and abroad.

  What annoys Mr. Friedrich-Schmidt is that the output is too slow to climb. Now he has received orders for more than 4,200 trucks. According to the existing production capacity, it cannot be completed in three years.

  So, he no longer dared to take orders anymore, he could only watch that he could not make a large sum of money. This kind of happy trouble was not experienced by others, and he was deeply impressed.

  The problem is that the big car manufacturers also take a fancy to this market. If they switch to freight cars, these big manufacturers have an advantage. After all, they have more skilled workers and complete equipment, and their production capacity is much larger than that of the BMW car factory.

  This thing is just a layer of window paper, there is no secret when you poke it open.

  Key technologies, BMW has applied for patents, such as engine water pump forced heat exchange technology, but this is not an insurmountable obstacle.

  Mr. Friedrich-Schmidt was looking around in the factory, thinking hard, trying to find a practical way to increase production efficiency, then it is good to produce 10 more cars every month, this is all money!

  That...Can you try the "Etruscan" method?

  A thought flashed through Mr. Friedrich-Schmidt's mind. After thinking about it, he felt there was a way, and he got excited, and hurried back to the office.

  He wants to convene relevant administrative staff and technicians to discuss whether they can finely decompose the thousands of processes in automobile production in order to achieve an increase in production efficiency.

  His inspiration comes from the Etruscan pottery factory...

In 1769, the British businessman Josiah Wedgwood opened the Etruscan pottery factory. He decomposed the pottery craftsmanship originally completed by one person into dozens of processes, which were completed by a dedicated person, which greatly improved Productivity.

  The factory is divided into specialized dredgers, masons, and masons, blank makers, painters, engravers, boiler workers, etc., to implement refined process decomposition, each worker focuses on his own work, and errors are greatly reduced.

  Automobile production is much more complicated than manufacturing. Mr. Friedrich-Schmidt has no idea whether this idea can be realized or not. This matter must be done in a concerted manner to see if a feasible solution can be found.

  As long as any method can improve production efficiency, no matter how difficult it is, he will try it, hoping to seize this fleeting precious business opportunity and let the BMW plant take off.

  (End of this chapter)