Chapter 190： Volkswagen buried by orders

Happy time is very short-lived. In persuading his father to dispel the idea of ​​participating in the war, Edel, who got his father's health and the end of his life was about to come, had to pick up the current tense affairs after spending a whole day with his father, Carol I.

After Edel was fighting for Romania’s war money, Volkswagen, as the leading company in Romania, fell into a booming environment. In the office of Volkswagen General Manager Minoba, he is very busy.

"Hey, is it the general manager of Katuraski? We need 10,000 tons of steel this month. The price is easy to say, you should go up as soon as you want, no problem. Now we have too many orders and need so much steel, otherwise it will be finished. No order. Thank you someday I will treat you to a big meal. No problem, then please have French food."

Minoba put down the phone call to the steel factory, and before he could catch his breath, the phone rang again.

"Hey, it's me. For the French order for 20,000 1.5-ton trucks, you tell them that the price has not increased. You also told them that it must be 3 months later to pick up the goods. We can only reach so much capacity now. If he is not satisfied , I told him that the German order was the first one. If I blame him, he placed the order late. He also wanted to buy more than 800 5-ton heavy trucks from our inventory and told him that he had been taken away by the British and Germans. The order has already been scheduled for 3 months. If you want to buy, let him hurry up. It is estimated that it will be 6 months later."

After Minoba put down the phone, the door of his office was opened with a bang. Minoba, who was taken aback, took a look, and it was the production supervisor Delaspa who walked in frizzy with sweat. Seeing Draspar's rude actions, Minoba, the general manager, rarely suppressed his anger and asked. "What is so anxious?"

Drasper, who did not hear Minoba's dissatisfaction, touched the sweat on his forehead, and wiped it with his hand when he walked across the office leather sofa. Seeing the actions of the production supervisor, Minoba, who is his boss, felt his veins jump. But what Deraspar walked up to him and said made him careless about his sofa. "The factory has too many truck orders now, and even shifts can't complete the task. What should we do?"

Hearing what Delaspar said, Minoba replied without thinking. "Then hire people."

As for the boss's suggestion, Delasper explained immediately. "I have sent people out to recruit people, but now the truck production line is running at full capacity, no matter how many people there are, it won't work."

Hearing Delaspar’s explanation, Minoba knew that the production supervisor probably had an idea, but he needed his own nod. He asked immediately. "What can you do now."

Drasper immediately said two methods he had prepared. "There are two ways to build a truck production line, but it will take at least three months to purchase equipment, build a new factory building, equipment transportation, commissioning, and worker training. This is still a situation where we are already skilled. And workers can get started quickly with familiarity and new skills."

Minoba interrupted him as soon as he heard that it would take three months. "Just talk about the second plan."

Draspar, who was interrupted by his boss, immediately said that the second method was also what he wanted. "That is to transform the existing production line to make them produce trucks. We have studied that if the existing T-car production line is changed to a 1.5-ton truck production line, it only takes about 10 days. Many retrofit equipment can be used in For domestic purchases, only a small amount needs to be purchased from abroad. And the cost is not too expensive, only about 13 million lei."

Minoba thought about Delaspar's idea of ​​changing the T-car production line to produce 1.5-ton trucks. He is still very affectionate for this perfect family vehicle that can sit two people and carry half a ton of cargo and run fast. And the most important thing is this car, which brought Volkswagen and Ford to the two largest car manufacturers in the world. This is the reason why he likes this car.

But now that the European war breaks out, all countries are busy fighting. The passenger car market sales have dropped by 70%. As the king of the market, the Model T is no exception. Now sales have dropped by 65%. Two of the three T-car production lines in the Volkswagen factory have entered a semi-stop state. More importantly, I don't know how long this war will take, which makes Minoba, the head of Volkswagen, anxious.

Fortunately, the passenger car market has shrunk due to the war, and trucks that can be used for military transportation have exploded because of the good causes of the war to allow him to sit and live. Otherwise, he would have been thinking of ways around, where he could sit securely in an air-conditioned room.

After thinking about it for a while, Minoba said to Deraspar who was standing in front of him waiting for a reply. "You ask someone to make a modified production plan. I need to look at it before I can make a decision."

Drasper immediately took out a folded piece of paper from his pocket, smiled and handed it to his boss and talked about it. "I have already made the plan, right here."

Seeing the production supervisor grinning crookedly, Minoba scolded for no reason. "If it weren't for your outstanding ability, I would have let you go out of it just like you."

Drasper, who smiled more brilliantly, was already familiar with the temper of his boss, knowing that it was just caring for him, but he didn't forget to say it back. "Are you just willing to be such a capable supervisor of me?"

Ignoring the presumptuous production supervisor in front of him, Minoba opened this sweaty renovation plan and looked at it. On the top are the crooked words written by Delaspar, but Minoba looks at the result of the transformation.

In the entire renovation plan, for the existing three T-car production lines, Delaspar suggested to renovate the two latest production lines. Among them, the production line with an annual output of 32,000 T-cars can achieve an annual output of 24,000 1.5-ton trucks through the extension of the assembly line conveyor belt, the installation and modification of equipment to eliminate unnecessary processes. Another T-car production line with an annual output of 27,000 vehicles will also reach an annual production capacity of 21,000 vehicles after the transformation is completed.

However, in this plan, Delaspar mentioned that if it is transformed into a truck production line, if you want to switch back to producing Model T cars, then the gain will not be worth the loss. The two production lines that could produce 59,000 Model T cars would only have a production capacity of 43,000 units if they were changed back. It would be better to replace them with new ones.

After reading the transformation plan prepared by Draspard, Minoba is also suffering from gains and losses. This is obviously a bet on the length of the war. If this European war drags on for more than a year, then the transformation will be a huge profit. If the battle is over within a few months, then the two truck production lines currently being transformed will be scrapped.

Minoba was walking back and forth thinking, Deraspar looked at his boss and knew that this was not a simple decision. If the wrong choice was made, Volkswagen, which should have been lucrative this year, is likely to be busy. Minoba himself knew that if the wrong choice was made, the cost of renovation and the purchase of a new production line would consume this year's profits, but he thought about the pile of truck orders and made a decision.

"You go to transform the two T-car production lines, I hope they can fight for more than a year."

Draspa nodded and spoke after receiving a reply. "Okay, I'll let my subordinates work overtime to transform it out, so it won't delay the production of the truck."

Said that Deraspar walked out of Minoba’s office, leaving behind the boss who had just made up his mind.

Of course, Volkswagen is not the only example of Romania getting the war dividend. There are now too many Romanian companies making huge profits because of this war. Some of them took the opportunity to become bigger and stronger, while others were not enterprising and were overwhelmed by rivals after the war. However, this war also gave Romania's newly developed industrial system enough profits, allowing Edel to plant this small industrialized sapling with his own hands to grow rapidly.

However, the most profitable industry is of course not the automobile manufacturing industry, but other industries related to war.