Chapter 60 Preparing for Production
When Cui Changjia arrived at the factory, Cui Xiuyuan was already there having lunch with Dagang and Ergang. The meal was cooked by Dagang, and it was a pot of stewed meat with cabbage, vermicelli, tofu, and two big steamed buns for each person.

The three of them were eating together and almost finished the food in the pot. Ergang was still telling a story about a rural romance, but when he saw Cui Changjia coming, he felt embarrassed to stop.

Cui Changjia placed the stewed chicken he brought on the table and said with a smile, "I've already eaten it. I forgot to call you to tell you that there's chicken. Dagang and Ergang, come and have some."

"Manager Cui, come and eat too." Dagang and Ergang now call Cui Changjia "Manager Cui".

"I've eaten, you guys eat now."

"I'm full, you guys eat some more." Cui Xiuyuan said as he grabbed the crutch beside him, tucked it under his armpit, stood up and walked out.

Seeing this, Cui Changjia also followed him out.

"Brother, how are you feeling?" Cui Changjia asked as he chased after Cui Xiuyuan.

Cui Changjia was asking Cui Xiuyuan how he felt.

Cui Xiuyuan has never been so happy in such a long time. He feels like there is a fire burning in his heart, and he has an urge to break through everything and move forward courageously!
Cui Xiuyuan was leaning on a crutch, walking forward erratically on the concrete ground outside, with the vast starry sky above his head.

He paused. "Very good, Jiajia," his tone was very serious. "Jiajia, thank you for your hard work."

"Why are you so polite? Let's go to the office and sit for a while. Have you been there before?"

"Of course. I think your improved desk is simple and practical, and it looks much better than the traditional desk."

"It's just that the chairs aren't very good. When we have more funds, we'll import some swivel chairs ourselves."

Cui Xiuyuan's eyes were full of stars. "Should we put the product on the agenda?"

"Aren't we waiting for you to be discharged from the hospital? Why don't we discuss it now?"

"go!"

That night, it was almost ten o'clock when Cui Changjia returned home. Although it was late, she and Cui Xiuyuan decided on two small household products. One is a small folding table suitable for college students, which is mainly targeted at college students. The other is a 75*80 folding table for families. Both products can be made of ecological boards.

The eco-board has been completed, and the only thing left is the hardware.

The hardware of a small folding table can be customized, but the hardware of a large folding table must be made of steel pipes, and they cannot be particularly thick and heavy.

The thicker the steel pipe, the higher the cost, which is not suitable for them in the early stage when they want to occupy the market share.

Whether it is the hardware of a large folding table or the hardware of a small folding table, unlike screws and other things that can be made with standard parts, they have to be custom-made.

Cui Xiuyuan gave Cui Changjia the names of two factories and asked her to go there tomorrow to compare prices.

The next morning, at just eight o'clock, Cui Changjia arrived at the first factory, Brothers Hardware Factory.

This is a small factory. You can almost see the whole picture inside from the outside. The yard is about 100 square meters in total. There is a row of houses at the back. The big one at the end looks like a factory building. According to Cui Changjia's experience, she estimated that a factory building of that size would only have two machine tools at most.

There wasn't even a security guard at the gate of Xingshi Hardware Factory. She shouted through the gate and someone came out immediately.

He was a middle-aged man, about forty years old, not tall, but neatly dressed and had a very honest look.

"What's up?" the man asked. "I want to look at the hardware."

"Oh," the man smiled, and hurried to open the door, then extended his hand to shake hands with Cui Changjia and introduced himself, "My last name is Zhang, Zhang Shichao, you can just call me Lao Zhang."

"Hello, Mr. Zhang, my name is Cui Changjia."

Lao Zhang is just his self-proclaimed name, Cui Changjia would never really call him "Lao Zhang".

"Where do you want Mr. Cui to use the hardware? What are the specifications?" Zhang Shichao guided Cui Changjia inside. "Please come this way. You can take a look at our parts first."

Zhang Shichao spoke slowly and it was very comfortable to get along with him.

"I don't have many hardware requirements. I need steel pipes, angle irons, and iron brackets. Can you do it?"

"We can make anything that you can see on the market, or if you have drawings, we can make them according to the drawings."

Zhang Shichao's Brothers Hardware Factory doesn't look big from the outside, but once you get inside you'll find that it's very long and deep, with at least four machine tools in the back and a display cabinet in the front, on which are displayed all kinds of hardware made by their factory, as well as various materials for pipe fittings.

The blueprint was drawn by Cui Xiuyuan. Cui Changjia handed it to Zhang Shichao. Zhang Shichao took a look and said, "This is quite simple." He pointed to the iron bracket and said, "I'll charge you 50 cents for this set. The steel pipe is more time-consuming. The labor fee ranges from 80 cents to 2 yuan depending on the thickness of the steel pipe. I can't produce angle iron, but I have a channel to purchase it. If you want it together, it will definitely be cheaper than the market price."

What Zhang Shichao was talking about was just the price of labor. He still needs to calculate the exact amount based on the length.

Cui Changjia said, "In addition to the price, we must also ensure the quality of the hardware, especially the iron parts. They cannot rust after a period of use and damage our reputation."

"Don't worry, the materials we use are in accordance with national standards. The iron parts are all galvanized and absolutely corrosion-resistant."

Cui Changjia asked Zhang Shichao to calculate the price for her, and then left her contact information. If he was sure he wanted it, she would come back to confirm the quantity with Zhang Shichao.

Before leaving, Zhang Shichao also brought samples to Cui Changjia for her to compare.

The Cui family is no longer the same as it used to be. Whether buying hardware or other things, the lower the cost, the better.

Cui Changjia went to another hardware factory called Shixing, but it was a large factory and they would only produce products with a minimum order of 10,000 pieces. Even if they started with a minimum order of 10,000 pieces, the price was still higher than that of the Brothers Hardware Factory.

It was already noon when Cui Changjia returned to the factory, so he had lunch there.

Because the house was still under repair, the foreman Brother Jiang and his team prepared a big pot meal at noon. Cui Changjia filled a bowl of food and followed Cui Xiuyuan to the office to eat.

Cui Xiuyuan slept soundly in the factory yesterday, but this morning he was fumbling around in the factory, trying to figure out what to do.

Cui Xiuyuan first looked at the price given by Zhang Shichao that Cui Changjia brought back, and he frowned as soon as he saw it.

"What's wrong? Is the price wrong?"

"No," Cui Xiuyuan sneered, "Ye Guochu is overdoing it," he said, pointing to the price of the screws quoted by Zhang Shichao, "Ye Guochu gave us a price of ten yuan per pound for this type of screws."

The Cui family used to have all their hardware supplied by the Ye family. Whatever hardware they wanted, the Ye family would go and look for it, and then give them a price, which Cui Xiuyuan would give them.

I didn’t expect the Ye family to be so excessive and actually added so much extra money!