Ekins-McGee Machinery Factory is a small machinery factory with 40 workers, located in the small town of Barr, Texas, USA. The factory's main business is to produce small batches of spare parts for some large enterprises across the United States. It has a business volume of about three to four million US dollars a year, which is enough for partners Ekins and McGee to live a comfortable life.

The business of Yimai factory is obtained through the Internet. Old customers will send the drawings of the parts and parts they need by email. The factory produces them based on the drawings, and then airlifts the parts and parts produced to these customers. The parts and parts that customers need are often non-standard, with a small quantity and a high time requirement, so they ask Yimai factory to produce. If it is a large batch of standard parts, these customers will often choose to go to China to find suppliers, because the production cost of Chinese companies is far lower than that of American companies. The savings of each accessories are one dollar, tens of thousands, and hundreds of thousands of accessories is very considerable.

However, in recent days, the situation at the Yimai factory has changed dramatically. Orders fly like snowflakes from all over the United States, and many orders are in large batches. When I received the first order, Ekins and McGee were filled with joy because such a large order has been enough for the factory to produce for several weeks. No one who opened the factory doesn't like orders. But as subsequent orders come one by one, the surprise of the two became panic.

"What's going on? It's not an April Fool's Day prank, right?" Eggins asked his old partner McGee.

"No, Mr. Fizell of Heifie Company is also an old customer. He asked us to order 45 standard pieces in one go, which is definitely not a prank." McGee said.

"But, I heard that they had imported these standard parts from China before. The Chinese standard parts are produced in large batches and are much cheaper than us. Why did Haifei Company order us?"

"This may be related to the tax increase policy introduced by the President. Have you not followed the news? The President ordered a 50% tariff on metal products imported from China, and the standard parts happen to be metal products."

"Of course I have followed this news, and I also think this policy is a major benefit to us. However, I have calculated that even if the tariff is increased by 50%, it is still cheaper to purchase standard parts from China than to ask us to purchase. You know, the labor costs in China are much lower than that of us, and the asking prices for our workers here are really too high."

"I don't know this." McGee said, scratching his scalp with little hair left, "Anyway, it's a good thing for us to transfer the order from the Chinese to us."

Of course, Ekins and McGee didn't know that a series of companies such as Hayfie turned to the United States for domestic purchase of spare parts, which was under pressure from Map. Map has warned them that if they continue to use large quantities of accessories imported from China, the government will further increase the tax rate of these accessories and will impose sanctions on them through other means. Although the price of accessories imported from local American companies such as the Yimai factory is still higher than that of Chinese accessories after tax increases, it has at least avoided Map's taboo.

These days, in order to find local parts suppliers in the United States, Fizell, like her peers in other companies, has tried their best. Of course, the United States is not without large enterprises that manufacture various standard parts, but the long-term division of labor system cannot be changed overnight. The parts imported by the United States from China every year are worth tens of billions of dollars, which is not something that a few large enterprises can digest. Fizell and others must find small and medium-sized enterprises hidden in corners, issue orders to them, and ask them to help complete the manufacturing of some accessories. The business opportunities obtained by the Yimai factory these days are not accidental.

"Is it a good thing?" Ekins said with a wry smile. "McGee, if it was just a company in Haifei, it would be a good thing. But in the past few days, we have received more than 40 orders, and it will take at least five years for us to complete these orders. Moreover, according to my estimate, this is just the beginning. The next step is to receive more orders, and it will be impossible for us to complete these orders in 50 years."

"Perhaps, we should expand our production scale," McGee said.

Ekins nodded: "Wait and see, if there are more orders in the next few days, we will consider expanding the production scale."

The situation in the next few days is completely consistent with Ekins' speculation. More orders come from all over the place, and many orders are marked with prompts such as "urgent, online waiting". The manufacturing process of these spare parts on these orders is not complicated. With the technical strength of the Yimai factory, it can be completely won. What Ekins and McGee need to do is just to expand the production scale. Both of them are practical people. Seeing this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make money, they immediately rolled up their sleeves and started to arrange them.

If you want to do a good job, you must first sharpen your tools. This principle applies even in the United States. If the Yimai factory wants to expand its production scale, the first thing is to purchase equipment. Yijins called a Texas machine tool supplier and asked the other party to purchase five German Emmak horizontal machining centers.

"No problem at all!" The other party's answer was very refreshing, "Each horizontal machining center is 170,000 US dollars. If you buy 5 units at one time, we can provide you with a discount, each unit will be reduced to 160,000, and the total of 5 units is 800,000."

"160,000!" Ekins was annoyed, "Each unit is 160,000 yuan. Do you still say it is a discount? Just a year ago, I bought the same processing center from your company, and the price was only 120,000 yuan at that time."

"It is true, but Mr. Ekins, have you forgotten the tax? This horizontal machining center of Emag is made in their manufacturing base in China, so it belongs to Chinese products. According to the government's newly issued policy of increasing taxes on Chinese products, each machining center will have to increase import tariffs of US$40,000." The other party explained.

"Okay..." Ekins responded angrily.

"So, Mr. Eggins, do you need these five more machines?"

"I think we need it, but please allow me to discuss it with my partner."

After putting down the phone, Ekins rubbed his forehead and said to McGee: "MGee, it seems that raising taxes on Chinese products is not all good. The price of the machine tool we are going to buy has increased by 30%.

"This is just a machine tool," said McGee. "When you called just now, I counted it again. In addition to machine tools, we also need to purchase a batch of process equipment, such as fixtures, pallets, and small carts for pushing parts. Most of these things are made in China. I estimate that their prices have increased by 30% to 50%.

"shit, in this way, the profits we make from these orders were taken away by Mapp!" Eggins couldn't help but swear. People who don't practice it don't know that a factory needs a variety of things, and lacking them will cause all kinds of troubles. Let's give a simple example, you have to seal the product with a rubber strip and send it to customers, at least a cutter for tearing the rubber strips, right? A small toy on Taobao costs less than $1, but it is also made in China!

"There is another problem, and I haven't figured out a solution yet," McGee said. "To complete the order at hand, we have to expand the production scale at least five times, which means we need to recruit 200 new workers. However, I thought about it, I'm afraid that the whole town of Bar is not able to collect 200 workers."

"It can only be recruited from other places," Eggins said.

McGee shook her head and said, "I guess it's not easy to recruit from other places."

"There are still many unemployed people in some towns around, so it should not be difficult to gather 200 people, right?" Eggins said.

"It's not difficult to find 200 unemployed people, but not all unemployed people can work. What we need are skilled workers, and in the whole town of Bar, how many skilled workers can you find unemployed?"

"This..." Eggins was a little stunned. He recalled his neighbors and unexpectedly found that McGee's words were right. Among the unemployed people he knew, Jones was a second-rate man, and he was idle all day long. He was probably recruiting an old man to serve him. Louisa was smart and virtuous, but what the factory needed was a male worker with strength. Louisa was okay as a bar waiter to serve the dishes, so how could he do the factory work; and Old Tony, who had worked seriously in the factory, but that seemed to be something 20 years ago. Can he still pick up his skills now?

Skilled workers need to be trained through training and practical training. The United States has been de-industrial for a long time. Among the more than 300 million people, only 13 million people are engaged in manufacturing. A large number of young people have never entered a factory. It is really a challenging task to get these people to take off their earrings and stand on the production line.

"I'm very surprised, how did the Chinese do it?" Eggins asked McGee.

"I'm thinking about this question, too," McGee said. "We just received such a little order and couldn't digest it. These orders were sent to Chinese people in the past. Are Chinese people all superhuman?"

It’s really not a fault for these two guys who are not knowledgeable. A lot of Americans actually lack understanding of the world outside the town where they live, not to mention that China is far away from the ocean. They have seen China from TV and movies, but they do not tell them why the Chinese can make so many products. On the contrary, these TVs and movies show that China is an extremely backward place, with the people there being unkempt and dull eyes. Occasionally, there is one who reads literate or returned from studying in the United States, and they are depressed and unsuccessful.

"McGee, I think it's necessary for us to go to China and see what's going on there," Eggins said.
Chapter completed!