Chapter 108 - National Stock Number

“My plan is to first standardize the components of the Harmony-class ships, and then implement this standardization system through orders,” Shi Jiantao said. “The native craftsmen in Guangdong will certainly not meet our requirements at the beginning, but they have a desire for profit. As long as we propose a quantifiable standard and help them achieve it, after a period of time, they will be able to produce according to our requirements.”

Chinese enterprises before the 1980s also did a relatively poor job in controlling tolerances. In the relatively precise aviation industry, it was still not possible to achieve complete interchangeability of parts for the same model of aircraft. If China in the 20th century, after thirty years of industrialization, could not do it, it was even less likely for the completely handicraft-based shipbuilding industry of the Ming Dynasty.

Wu De expressed great doubt about this. In their experience, native handicraft workshops, unless directly under the management of the Elders, were far from the requirements of industrialization in terms of both product quality and production efficiency.

“To be honest, I’m not very optimistic about your idea. This process is too long; it’s probably not something that can be done overnight,” Wu De said. “To improve the craftsmanship of the native shipyards, you have too much training and modification work to do.”

Most shipwrights were illiterate, and the dimensions and shapes of the components were all memorized. Skills were passed down orally. To establish component standards for such a group of artisans and have them produce according to certain specifications, Wu De believed the investment was too large.

Instead of spending so much effort training them, it would be better to simply annex the native shipbuilding workshops, merge all their manpower, and then retrain the craftsmen according to the new model.

“To be honest, I’m not very optimistic about your idea,” Wu De said. “I’ve seen many native craftsmen. They are very skilled and smart, but it’s very difficult for them to understand weights and measures, to understand the meaning of modern weights and measures, instead of using their own hands or crude measuring tools. This retraining alone will consume a lot of manpower and time. Do you think we can afford to wait? The Guihua craftsmen are under our direct management, and we can supervise and correct them at any time. Now you want to issue orders to individual independent workshops and have them follow a system they don’t understand at all—I’m very worried about the actual operational results.”

“You’re right,” Shi Jiantao knew that Wu De’s words were very reasonable, and he found it difficult to refute. “But I think we can give it a try. Even if there’s only a one percent chance of success, it will greatly alleviate our production pressure. We can try outsourcing some small components to them. Even if it fails, the impact won’t be significant.”

After careful consideration, Wu De agreed to his plan—but limited him to trying it on a smaller scale.

With Shi Jiantao’s efforts, the Planning Department finally issued an order to the Hong Kong shipyard to build 24 H-800 ships, all of the standard type. According to the requirements, Shi Jiantao had to complete at least two-thirds of the order by the end of 1631.

Wu De issued the approval for the material allocation list and the permission for the use of shipbuilding funds.

In the 1631 annual financial budget at the beginning of the year, the Planning Department received a fund for buying or building ships, specifically for adding to the transport fleet. A portion of this money was successively allocated to the Lin’gao shipyard for the construction of the 901-class tugboats and several coastal barges. The remaining funds had not yet been used due to the limited production capacity of the shipyard.

Originally, Wu De had planned to convert a portion of the funds into foreign exchange to purchase existing large-tonnage Guang or Fu ships from Guangdong, but because the Council of Elders’ current “foreign exchange”—silver reserves—was tight, this had not yet been done.

The funds were counted in coupons, but Shi Jiantao was located in Hong Kong, and according to his plan, many raw materials would be procured from Guangdong. The circulation of coupons in Guangdong was very small, basically not extending beyond the city of Guangzhou. The small-scale circulation of coupons in Guangzhou was largely due to the prestige and financial strength of the Zi brand.

Once outside the city gates, the coupons had no purchasing power. Therefore, Wu De reminded Shi Jiantao to apply for a certain amount of “foreign exchange” from the Delong Bank to pay for the raw materials imported from Guangdong.

“Now that there is more foreign trade, the use of grain coupons is really inconvenient,” Wu De said. “I don’t know how the people in the Ministry of Finance and Finance plan to handle this. They are just trying to save silver, but there are many things that must be paid for with silver.”

“I will be frugal in the revolution.”

“I’ve given you the order; you must complete it on time,” Wu De said. “You know, I originally planned to directly purchase some large Guang and Fu ships from Guangdong to participate in the Dengzhou and Zhejiang operations. If you mess up, things will become very difficult to handle, understand?”

“Yes, I understand. I guarantee I will complete the mission,” Shi Jiantao said loudly.

“Guarantees mean nothing to me. Deliver the ships on time,” Wu De waved his hand. “If you can’t do it, I can only propose to the Executive Committee to mobilize all our ships for wartime, which will seriously affect imports and exports and the supply of various overseas stations.”

With Shi Jiantao’s plan for outsourcing production, the issue of industrial standardization and management, which had been repeatedly emphasized by various executive committee members and Elders since the beginning of Lin’gao’s industrialization, became a problem that needed to be solved urgently.

Industrial standardization and management were not only needed by the shipbuilding industry or industrial enterprises. When the Planning Department and the General Staff were formulating the plans for the Dengzhou and Zhejiang operations, they had already encountered difficulties in the mobilization, transportation, storage, and distribution of a large amount of materials.

During the development of Sanya, the Planning Department and the army had already encountered various inconveniences in transportation and supply. Although the types and specifications of products that Lin’gao’s industrial and agricultural system could produce were less than those of a large supermarket by the standards of the old world, the complexity of organizing supplies far exceeded the Elders’ expectations.

If it weren’t for Hong Huangnan, who had at least a considerable theoretical foundation in logistics, to compile supply lists and formulate supply procedures, the supply work for the development of Sanya would have been a disaster.

Even with professional personnel in command, various errors occurred during the supply process: urgently needed materials were not shipped, while materials that were in large stock in Sanya were shipped batch after batch; goods that should have been shipped to Sanya were sent to Leizhou, and goods sent to Hong Kong were delivered to Sanya. There was even a ridiculous incident where the shipping manifest did not match the goods in the opened boxes. During this period, there were also incidents of goods “disappearing.” In the Planning Department’s inventory check, it was once found that some goods were “whereabouts unknown.” And a few months later, these goods, which had been declared as “not in their planned location,” mysteriously reappeared in an inventory check at a location no one had ever thought of.

In the Dengzhou and Zhejiang operations, the logistics supply was even more arduous. Not only did they have to supply rations to more than a hundred thousand refugees, but they also had to provide clothes, medicine, and shelter materials, as well as cups for drinking water and bowls and chopsticks for eating. Organizing ships for long-distance round-trip transportation also required setting up rest stops and supply points along the way. These stations needed construction materials and supplies for the staff and garrison. Ships needed repairs and replenishment of ship materials during their voyages.

Not only were the quantity and variety of supplied materials large, but they also had to be supplied to multiple nodes. According to the plan, multiple rest stops had to be set up along the route from Dengzhou to Lin’gao for turnover. These rest stops had to be supplied with various materials based on the daily number of refugees staying, arriving, and departing.

To ensure the orderly and accurate supply of materials, a joint meeting of various departments was held in the conference room of the Executive Committee compound. The topic of the meeting was to formulate a standardized coding system.

The meeting was initiated by the Planning Department, but the suggestion to use a standardized code was proposed by Si Kaide and Hong Huangnan.

Hong Huangnan’s idea was simple. He needed to supply materials to the ever-expanding army and overseas stations and urgently needed to establish a standard code system to support logistics. Otherwise, he and his handful of logistics personnel would not be able to cope with large-scale logistics work. A common saying of Hong Huangnan was: among the various military departments in Lin’gao, the logistics command was an organ without a presence. It not only had no commander but also not a single guard.

Si Kaide’s idea was much more complex. He suggested that this system be fully implemented in all fields. This was an important part of the “standardization construction” promoted by the Council of Elders.

At the meeting, Si Kaide distributed a large pile of materials to everyone: a standard for the US military’s coding system, which seemed completely unrelated.

“This is our important reference. The US military’s standardized code: NSN—the National Stock Number. When the US military decides to adopt anything, it will be given a stock number. In the future, any warehouse and unit of the US military and NATO in the world will use this code as the ID number for this item…” Si Kaide said.

“An item, you mean for example—” Facing the suspicious looks of the Elders, Si Kaide continued, “For example… this khaki M65 jacket of mine, size L, this is one item. Whether it’s made in Taiwan or Mexico, as long as it’s certified, it’s the same item. But if it’s a size M, or desert camouflage, then it’s another item, because the Americans don’t want to send desert camouflage uniforms to the troops in Alaska.

“Now we can give a code to every part of the shipyard. This code is linked to a set of files, which includes all the drawings, performance, data, and quality standards, records of failures and supply situations, a list of qualified suppliers, and a blacklist of unqualified suppliers. Whether it’s a screw or a mast, in the future, when someone needs the same thing, they can find it by searching the files.