Arcane Lord

After leaving the Government Affairs Office, Xia Duo went to the industrial zone in the southeast of Linshui Town as usual to inspect the production status of each factory, especially the situation after the introduction of the alchemy circle.

The first factory he went to was the territory's bicycle factory. As soon as he walked in, Cade, the chief officer of the territory's logistics department who accompanied him, recruited the factory manager Melk.

"The Lord of the Territory is inspecting. Please introduce the recent production situation of the factory."

"yes."

Melk is an honest and loyal middle-aged man. He was still a little nervous when he saw Sha Duo, but with Cade's encouragement, his introduction became more and more fluent from the stammering at the beginning:

"Lord, what you see now is a bicycle assembly workshop, which adopts the latest assembly line design. Sir, although the workbench that the workers are assembling is stationary, the surface is actually covered with a layer of magic glue mat.

"When they each finish assembling the parts in their hands, the operator at one end of the assembly line will transfer the power with the steam engine to move the entire magic glue pad back a certain distance.

"So the bicycle you see being assembled on the assembly line now is gradually becoming complete from front to back."

Xia Duo was curious that the factory area actually got out the running money. He had just mentioned an idea before, but he didn't expect that there were really capable people in the territory. He originally thought that this game would definitely require the participation of magic.

Unexpectedly, it was just a purely mechanical device powered by steam.

Of course, this is just the finished product. The birth process behind the finished product must be inseparable from the presence of a mage, otherwise ordinary people would not be able to create this magic glue conveyor belt.

But in any case, the performance of the factory has completely exceeded Xia Duo's expectations. Of course, he did not hesitate to praise and also put forward prospects:

"Very good! Keep it up. In addition, the concept of division of labor and cooperation in the assembly line is very important. In the future, the process must be refined to reduce the difficulty of workers' operations. Of course, in this process, we must also actively cultivate research talents. Now it is a manual assembly line, but the future may not be the same. It can’t be a fully automated production line!”

"Yes, Lord Lord, I will definitely work hard with everyone!"

"Um."

Xia Duo nodded, and just after taking two steps, he suddenly noticed a special part in the bicycle production process-the ratchet!

He had personally ridden a bicycle manufactured in the territory before. For an earthling like him who had experienced mature bicycle design, the experience was not very good.

Among them, the one that has the greatest impact on the experience is probably the ratchet. Without the ratchet, it would be like riding a bicycle to death. If this design scheme is suitable for human use, then all bicycles on the market will be of this design.

Unfortunately not!

From his own experience, Xia Duo feels that a bicycle still needs a ratchet to make riding more comfortable. As for other accessories, such as the handlebar, seat shape, height, etc., they are not as critical as the ratchet.

And now, he was watching Ratchet on the assembly line!

There is a simple test link on this assembly line after the chain is put on. The worker will turn the pedals of the bicycle back and forth. What Xia Duo just saw is that the wheels will not rotate when the pedals are reversed, but will continue to move forward.

This is apparently what a ratchet is for!

There are also chains. He didn't see any chains last time he tried it. It seems that the introduction of the alchemy circle brought a new design to the bicycle factory!

In the past, it wasn't that chains or ratchets couldn't be designed, but that it was too inconvenient to make such fine parts by hand. Although there were blacksmiths with extraordinary skills who could make them, what was the efficiency? What about the cost?

This obviously goes against Xia Duo's original intention of designing bicycles, which is to facilitate the travel of the people in the territory, especially the current commuting of the people in the north and south of Daxia Territory and Saville Territory.

If the quantity is too small and the price is too high, you might as well go to the platform and wait for the steam shuttle!

…

After leaving the assembly workshop, Xia Duo visited several precision manufacturing workshops, which were actually workshops equipped with alchemy arrays. Each workshop was equipped with at least one mage, responsible for mass manufacturing bicycle parts.

The alchemy circle here is actually similar to the 3D printer on earth, but it requires a mage to operate it, and ordinary people cannot operate it yet.

It's not that ordinary people can't activate the alchemy circle. If the quality of the finished product is not considered, ordinary people can certainly create something in a near-random state.

It would be too difficult for ordinary people to produce qualified finished products based on drawings like a mage, because ordinary people cannot directly operate it, so it is necessary to first develop a set of instructions and then tell ordinary people the specific meaning of these instructions.

Only by training ordinary people on what kind of instructions are needed for designing, can we finally cultivate a usable alchemy circle operator.

In terms of cost, training such an operator is worse than training a new mage!

So Xia Duo has never thought about designing an alchemy circle that can be operated by ordinary people, or a magic version of a 3D printer. The same goes for other similar industrial equipment. There will not be an ordinary version for the time being, and there may not even be a version for ordinary people in the future. There will be.

This civilian magic weapon is different. The civilian magic weapon is simple to operate. It probably only has a switch function. Not to mention ordinary people, even mages like it to be more relaxed.

Most of the industrial equipment is complicated to operate. If you don't know magic, you will always be separated by a barrier. It is more than twice as difficult for ordinary people to learn. If you really have the time and energy to learn, you might as well learn magic first!

…

Xia Duo did not stay long in the precision manufacturing workshop of the bicycle factory, because there is currently no mage there, and no mage has signed a long-term contract with the bicycle factory. They are all part-time and part-time, and the personnel are not fixed.

The parts produced here have been assembled. If there are still production tasks, then the factory director Melk will apply to Cade, and then Cade will go to the Tower of Time to issue the task.

If there is a mage willing to take over the task, then come to the bicycle factory to work overtime. If no one takes over the task, the factory will be temporarily shut down.

The production efficiency of ordinary people is far inferior to that of the alchemy circle. Unless the number of assembly lines in the assembly workshop is increased, the huge production capacity cannot be digested at all.

So according to what Cade said, the bicycle factory currently has four precision manufacturing workshops. The method of temporarily hiring mages is just right, so that one assembly line can have work for a long time.

If you want to expand production capacity, you only need to keep the mages stationed and increase the number of assembly lines.

…

"So how many bicycles can this factory produce per month?" Chateau asked.

"The current production capacity is about 10,000 vehicles per month!"

That is to say, in less than half a year, everyone in the territory can be equipped with a bicycle. This kind of production capacity is obviously somewhat excessive, because bicycles are durable goods, and there will be no potential buyers after half a year. Then wouldn’t the factory have to shutdown.