RPAGF Chapter 826 Seeking Help: I can't keep going to "Mom," what should I do?
Chapter 826 Seeking Help: I can't keep going to "Mom," what should I do?
Seeing Cheng Gui's shoulders shaking from crying, the factory manager quickly pulled over a chipped wooden chair in the corner: "Girl, sit down. Don't worry, we'll break down the problem and talk it out. The sky won't fall! Our factory is still waiting for this batch of medicine to earn foreign exchange."
He turned around, picked up the thermos from the windowsill, poured a cup of hot tea, and the red characters "Labor is the most glorious" on the enamel cup shone with moisture from the steam. As he handed it over, he deliberately touched the cup: "Let it cool down for a while, it's not hot anymore."
Cheng Gui took the teacup, his fingertips touching the warm cup, but his tears fell even more fiercely.
"Waaaaah... I can't make money in foreign exchange anymore!"
"What...what happened?" The factory manager was so shocked he almost lost his mind, and his tongue was tied in knots.
Cheng Gui, the young girl, took out a crumpled brown paper bag from her canvas bag. Inside was a clump of dried Isatis root syrup. She gently placed it on the table, the paper bag wrinkled from her tears: "Factory manager, it's my responsibility... There was a problem with the extraction and drying process I designed."
“This is the second batch of goods that I just took from the workshop this morning. It has already absorbed moisture and clumped together after only three hours.” She wiped away her tears, her voice choked with sobs. “I just retested the active ingredients using the chicken embryo screening method, and they are more than 15% lower than the standard… This batch of medicine is completely unqualified and cannot be shipped out.”
The factory manager's heart sank. He picked up the clump of sample and examined it closely, his brow furrowed.
"Go and call Old Liu here!"
As soon as Lao Liu entered the room, he saw the samples on the table and Zhang Chenggui crying, and he understood seven or eight parts of the situation.
He scratched his thinning hair, looking equally puzzled: "Factory manager, we strictly followed Cheng Gui's requirements for the process parameters, right? We've been watching the thermocouple readings of the extraction tank the whole time, and it's been between 85 and 90 degrees Celsius, without the slightest error! And that thermocouple was the one Cheng Gui bought himself..."
At this point, Old Zhang seemed to suddenly remember something and said to the factory director, "By the way, director, has the factory's finance department reimbursed Comrade Cheng Gui for the money he paid for that thermocouple?"
The factory manager's face flushed red, and he subconsciously rubbed his calloused hands, lowering his voice: "I remember, but look at our accounts. The money for buying licorice last month is still owed to the herbal medicine station. As a factory under the unified purchase and sales system, all profits are handed over, and the warehouse is almost out of spare gauze. We simply can't squeeze out this money..."
The factory manager's predicament was understandable. At that time, pharmaceutical factories across the country operated under a centralized purchasing and sales system, resulting in meager profits. It was impossible for them to achieve the exorbitant profits of a few yuan at the factory gate and hundreds of yuan at the pharmacy, as is the case in later generations.
Especially for traditional Chinese medicine factories, in the past they basically used ancient methods to process medicinal slices or to boil traditional preparations such as black plaster, and there was almost no modern industrial equipment.
Making black plaster sounds simple, but it is actually time-consuming, laborious, and quite dangerous. Experienced craftsmen rely entirely on experience and visual observation to control the heat. One wrong move and they could be burned by the splattering plaster, and if they accidentally fall into the pot, the consequences would be unimaginable.
Zhang Chenggui was inspired by the hardships and risks faced by the experienced workers. She saved money and spent it herself to buy an industrial thermocouple through a third party.
While the experienced pharmacist judged that "the time was right," she recorded the actual temperature data displayed on the thermocouple.
After repeated measurements and verifications, she finally figured out the key temperature control points for each stage of making black plaster. It can be said that this small thermocouple gave the entire Chinese medicine factory a quantifiable and replicable temperature standard for the first time, and was the "first cornerstone" for the entire factory to move towards industrialized production.
The few decent-looking traditional Chinese medicine purification tanks that were later added to the workshop were purchased with special funds approved by higher authorities because Zhang Chenggui had successfully developed a new product, Banlangen dried syrup, using the "chicken embryo screening method." Throughout the entire factory, the number of people who truly understood the equipment and modern pharmaceutical processes could be counted on one hand.
"Now is not the time to discuss reimbursement!" The factory manager steered the conversation back on track, pointing to the clumped sample. "The key question is, where did the problem lie? Temperature control is fine, so which part of the process went wrong?"
Zhang Guicheng took a deep breath, trying to calm herself down, and took out her notebook: "Factory Director, Section Chief Liu, I have carefully analyzed the process and suspect that the problem lies in the two later stages of concentration and drying."
Pointing to the process flow chart, she explained, "The extraction temperature is fine, but the vacuum level in the concentration process may not be stable enough, resulting in high residual moisture. More importantly, there is a problem with the drying method we are using."
How could there not be problems?
The drying box that Cheng Gui mentioned, well...
It's basically a furnace built with bricks, with a tin box on top, and baking trays inside, heated indirectly by burning coal.
This rudimentary method works well on a small scale, but once it's used for mass production, there's basically no hot air circulation in the box, which leads to severely uneven temperatures in different areas.
In areas close to heat sources, the dry syrup is prone to overheating and caramelizing, destroying its active ingredients; in areas farther away, moisture doesn't evaporate completely. This results in uneven moisture content in the finished product, with localized areas of high moisture content easily absorbing moisture and clumping…
Makes sense!
Now that we've found the cause, how do we solve it?
Let's upgrade our equipment!
But where would the money come from? Where would the technology come from? Zhang Guicheng was a master at research and development, but he was a complete novice when it came to mechanical manufacturing and equipment modification.
"Let's submit a report to our superiors and request support!" Old Liu suggested. "Last time we ran out of raw materials, didn't they help us coordinate and resolve the issue?"
The factory manager listened to Lao Zhang's words with a bitter expression.
He's asking for help again... Isn't this just creating trouble for the higher-ups? Hey, I'm the factory manager, here to solve problems. If I ask for help from above for everything, what will the higher-ups think of me...?
But this is a foreign exchange task... If I can't handle it, no matter what the higher-ups think, I'll want to be buried in the ground and used as a purifying agent for indigo...
The factory manager, looking worried, pulled a wad of cash from his pocket. While Old Liu was away at the workshop, he secretly rummaged through the pocket of the young woman from Saicheng, then continued to weigh the pros and cons, head in his hands.
"Oh, factory manager, what's going on...?"
"Take this first, consider it a personal payment to you. Pay me back after you get reimbursed..."
The factory manager nodded, his eyelids drooping, glancing reluctantly at the roll of money. The reimbursement was delayed, and he had long intended to use his own salary to cover it, but the thermocouples were expensive, and it took him two months of frugal saving to scrape together the money.
Yes, that's right. The factory manager's salary isn't even as high as that of the young lady from Cheng Gui, because she's a full-fledged researcher at the Tianjin Institute of Traditional Chinese Medicine, and she even gets a subsidy when she comes to their factory to provide guidance... Although the young lady keeps saying that she studied Western medicine, she can't deny that she has really made achievements in the field of traditional Chinese medicine.
"Oh well, never mind. I'm all alone anyway, as long as I have something to eat... That young lady came all the way from Tianjin to give me guidance, I can't let her be indebted to me..."
After mentally preparing himself, the factory manager turned his attention to the phone, wondering whether to make the call or not...
"No, factory manager, I want to ask for leave to consult with the teachers on the forum. Could you please give me a certificate?" Cheng Gui touched the wad of loose change wrapped in a handkerchief, feeling a little more confident.
What forum? What teacher?
But when the young girl from Cheng Gui said that he didn't need to tell his superiors about the difficulties, the factory manager was quite happy.
So, he personally accompanied the pharmaceutical factory's precious Gada to Factory 112 to borrow "Rhubarb Doppelganger".
"Hey, I thought I'd have to pay for electricity to use Big Yellow's clone, but they waived all the usage fees here? That's great! I wish I had come sooner, then I wouldn't have had to save up to pay the usage fee..."
Cheng Gui was overjoyed, typing furiously on the keyboard with two fingers while flashing a big smile at her factory manager.
The factory manager was taken aback. "I thought you were so happy because you'd made a profit. So you're planning to use the money to buy rhubarb?"
"Yeah, right!"
The factory manager was deeply moved. "So you're using your own money to help our factory!"
"Hey! You can come here and play all you want from now on! If they don't let you use it, I'll smear dog skin plaster all over their faces!"
"Huh? Factory manager, why are you suddenly so assertive?"
"Hmph! Their factory manager dug up several ginseng roots with fourth-grade leaves from me, fifty years old! Those are all treasures! Not to mention there was even a sixth-grade leaf one among them!" The factory manager lowered his head and said quietly.
"You might not know this if you studied Western medicine before, but this sixth-grade leaf is a 'good guy' that's over a hundred years old. If used properly, it can save a life!"
"Hmph, if Xiong Huoyan dares not repay the life-saving grace, I'll use a rubber band to flick his windows!"
"Wow, the factory manager is amazing!"