Reborn Industrial Tycoon

This is an old newspaper from "Qinghe Daily". Li Weidong used it to pad the table when he was tinkering with parts.

The newspaper was from April. At that time, Li Weidong was still selling air fryers at the Canton Fair, so naturally he did not see the contents of the newspaper.

Now a piece of tofu in this newspaper attracted Li Weidong's attention.

"Our city's inventor Lu Jianli won the second prize in the 'National Five Small Wisdom Cup'! Lu Jianli, this is a famous folk inventor in Qinghe!" Li Weidong said to himself.

In the 1980s, the Communist Youth League launched the "Five Small Activities" nationwide. The so-called "Five Smalls" refer to small inventions, small creations, small innovations, small designs, and small suggestions. The purpose is to encourage young people to use their intelligence in production practice.

Use your talents, use your brains, and think of ways to solve problems in production positions and promote the development of production.

During the "Five Small Activities", a group of "private inventors" emerged in China, and Lu Jianli was one of them.

Lu Jianli is a physics teacher at the No. 2 Middle School in Qinghe City. He used to study electronic technology. His teaching skills are mediocre, but he has a heart like Edison. He likes to tinker around and make some small inventions when he has nothing to do.

Usually this kind of folk inventor works like Leonardo da Vinci, inventing something that "will cost you three thousand lives" or something like that.

However, several of Lu Jianli's inventions can be used.

The future Lu Jianli has been engaged in invention and creation for more than thirty years, and has obtained a total of twelve national patents, four of which have been actually applied to products.

In terms of the application ratio of invention patents, one-third of the application rate is a very scary number. If you include Lu Jianli's status as a private inventor, then his achievements can be called brilliant.

In his previous life, Li Weidong had met Lu Jianli several times, all at events held in the city.

Now that Li Weidong saw the news about Lu Jianli in the newspaper, he decided to invite Lu Jianli to help the electric stove factory improve the air fryer, and also let him do some product design work.

Li Weidong is very clear about the importance of product research and development to an enterprise. Li Weidong also wants to set up a dedicated R&D team to pave the way for the future.

However, under the circumstances at that time, it was simply impossible for township and village enterprises to set up dedicated R&D teams.

The key to R&D is talents with technical skills, and in the case of the electric furnace factory, all employees are farmers. Many of these farmers have not even graduated from elementary school. They can count on ten fingers the number of people who have obtained junior high school diplomas.

It is a joke to expect these people who have never attended junior high school to engage in research and development.

At that time, even technical secondary school students were assigned jobs, and college students had a lot of choice when it came to assignments. This also meant that it was impossible for township and village enterprises like electric furnace factories to obtain talents through normal channels.

No technical secondary school student will have a brain cramp and go to a township enterprise after graduation. The level of technical secondary school students is not enough to support research and development work.

If you directly spend money to hire a technical expert to help with research and development, it will be a part-time job at most, but it is impossible to hire a full-time job.

This is not a matter of money, but that in the environment at that time, all the technical talents were in large state-owned enterprises and public institutions. Let the technical experts give up their iron rice bowls in state-owned enterprises and public institutions and run to small small town enterprises.

It is simply impossible to work part-time here.

Even in 2021, there are only a few people who hold iron rice bowls in state-owned enterprises and public institutions who can be poached by private companies, and most people are reluctant to part with the iron rice bowl.

In the late 1980s, people's ideas were much more conservative, and it was even more difficult to poach employees from state-owned enterprises and public institutions.

Part-time technicians can temporarily solve technical problems, but if you want to engage in systematic technology research and development, you will definitely not be able to count on them.

Li Weidong still has another way, which is to engage in industry-university-research collaboration and integration.

But in the late 1980s, industry-university-research collaboration was still a new thing. It was only in 1997 that the country issued a pilot notice on industry-university-research cooperative education, and identified 28 universities to carry out pilot projects for industry-university-research education.

What's more, Li Weidong's electric furnace factory is just a private enterprise affiliated to a township, and he is very soft-spoken. Even if he takes money to find universities to cooperate with industry, academia and research, people will not pay attention to Li Weidong.

At that time, township and village enterprises were not valuable, and even second-rate people without jobs in the city looked down upon township and village enterprises in the countryside.

Therefore, for electric furnace factories at this stage, private inventors like Lu Jianli may be the best choice for electric furnace factories to upgrade their products.

Many private inventors have first-class hands-on skills and a good understanding of the principles of various machines. Private inventors like Lu Jianli, who have obtained twelve national patents, may have better creative thinking than scientists in research institutions.

Let private inventors do simple product upgrades, they should still be able to do it, at least much better than those in the factory who have not graduated from elementary school.

In Li Weidong's view, since I don't have the conditions to hire a technical expert, I can only hire second-hand inventors.

…

The next day, Li Weidong bought gifts such as tobacco, wine, sugar and tea, and went to the Family Courtyard of the City No. 2 Middle School.

The family courtyard of No. 2 Middle School was much smaller than the family courtyard of the transportation company. Cars could not drive in, so Li Weidong parked the car outside on the roadside and walked in.

"Uncle, let me ask you, where does Mr. Lu Jianli live?" Li Weidong asked an old man who was enjoying the cool weather on the roadside.

"What kind of gift is Lu?" The uncle was a little deaf.

"Lu Jianli!" Li Weidong said loudly.

"What's Lu Jian?" the uncle asked again.

"Lu Jianli!" Li Weidong replied again.

"What Jianli?" The uncle may also be a time traveler, and he was joking with Li Weidong.

"Uncle, please rest, I'm not looking for Ma Dongmei!" Li Weidong said.

"Comrade, there is a problem with Uncle Wang! I just finished the first sentence and immediately forgot the next one!" A voice sounded from behind, and a middle-aged man pointed at the uncle's head and said.

"Oh, there's something wrong with my brain." Li Weidong turned to the middle-aged man: "Comrade, do you know where Teacher Lu Jianli lives?"

"Look for Xiao Lu. Walk straight ahead and you'll find the staff dormitory. Xiao Lu lives in the second-to-last row, the westernmost house." The middle-aged man replied.

"Thank you." Li Weidong took the gift and walked forward.

The so-called faculty and staff dormitories are just a row of tile-roofed houses. It seems that each household only has one room. The living environment is much worse than that of the former family quarters of transportation companies.

After all, the school is not a profit-making organization and relies entirely on financial allocations. If the finance does not provide money, there will be no extra money to improve the housing environment of faculty and staff.

Li Weidong came to the westernmost house in the second-to-last row, but saw that this house had not closed its doors.

Li Weidong looked into the room and asked, "Is Teacher Lu Jianli here?"

"Don't come in!" someone inside shouted.

Only then did Li Weidong see clearly that there was a person squatting on the ground. In front of this person were various metal parts and the like.

"Don't come in, be careful if you step on my invention!" the man squatting on the ground said.

"Okay, I won't come in." Li Weidong asked, "Are you Teacher Lu Jianli?"

"Yes, I am Lu Jianli!" The other party raised his head.

Li Weidong took a closer look and found that it was indeed the younger version of Lu Jianli, a little more literary and youthful than when he was older, but a little less stable.

"Who are you? What do you want from me?" Lu Jianli asked.

"My name is Li Weidong, and I am the director of the Xiangyang Town Electric Furnace Factory." Li Weidong paused and then said, "I came to Teacher Lu this time because I have something to ask Teacher Lu for help!"

"No time!" Lu Jianli shook his head without hesitation: "Don't you see that I'm busy working on new inventions now?"

"Teacher Lu, are these bits and pieces on the ground your new invention?" Li Weidong asked with a smile.

Lu Jianli glared at Li Weidong and said, "Don't underestimate these fragments. When I assemble them all, it will be a new invention!"

"Then you assemble it quickly. Once it's assembled, we can talk about the improvement of our factory's products." Li Weidong said.

"You think I don't want to assemble it? Don't we have no welding rods?" Lu Jianli snorted, and then said: "This welding rod is too expensive. I spent most of my salary on this welding rod."

Li Weidong smiled slightly: "Mr. Lu, are you looking for welding rods? I have plenty there. How many do you want to use? How many do you have?"

"Do you have welding rods? Give them to me for free?" Lu Jianli finally stood up.

"Not only do we have welding rods, I can also give you a room to use as a laboratory!" Li Weidong continued.

"Really?" Lu Jianli couldn't help but said, and immediately started to pick up the parts on the ground, and then said: "Wait for me to clean up, and now I will go to your place to get the welding rods!"

…

Li Weidong drove Lu Jianli in his car.

In the car, Li Weidong once again stated his purpose: "Mr. Lu, our factory has a product called an air fryer. I recently want to upgrade the air fryer in terms of functionality, such as adding a temperature control function.

Add a timing function. But I don’t know how to do this. I know you are an expert in inventions, so I came to you for advice.”

"Air fryer? I've never heard of it. What is this?" Lu Jianli asked.

"This is a household appliance." Li Weidong roughly explained the principles of the air fryer to Lu Jianli.

"This is an upgraded version of the electric oven. If you want to control the temperature, just add a temperature sensor. As for timing, it's even easier. Don't electric fans these days have timing?" Lu Jianli said.

"Can all these be done?" Li Weidong asked.

"Of course we can!" Lu Jianli continued: "I can help you make these things, but the welding rods you have have to be used by me, and I have to bring a few back."

"No problem! Isn't it just welding rods? You can just bring a box back later." Li Weidong said with a smile.

Second-hand inventor, the asking price is low, just a few welding rods and you're done!