Chapter 362: Production Samples!

Beiguan Village. Hot Pot Restaurant!

By the time Li Yi woke up, Long Zhanjun and the others had already returned from the market, and Li Yeqiao had withdrawn all the money from the account.

Although it was only a little over 30,000 yuan, it filled an entire bag.

There was no way around it—100-yuan bills hadn’t been issued yet, and the largest denomination was only 10 yuan, so 30,000 yuan meant 3,000 bills.

Li Yi was just about to head to the cotton mill when, before he could even set off, the shop phone rang.

Long Zhanjun answered the phone, exchanged a few words, and immediately called out to Li Yi, who was just about to leave, saying someone was looking for him.

When Li Yi took the phone, he immediately heard his brother-in-law’s familiar voice: “Xiao Yi, where in Beijing should I deliver the goods?”

“Brother-in-law, have it delivered to the State-Owned Second Cotton Mill near Beiguan Village. It’s easy to find there!” Li Yi said.

“Alright, we’ll be there in an hour at the latest. You wait for us there!”

Hearing this, Li Yi was taken aback!

“Brother-in-law, when did you leave? How did you get here so early?”

“After our call yesterday, I suddenly remembered we had a shipment to send to Beijing, so I went over to Director Liang’s house. After getting his approval, I took the convoy to Nianzishan Village overnight.”

Then his brother-in-law added, “Actually, our convoy arrived in Beijing at dawn; we just found a phone to call you!”

“A convoy? How many trucks did you bring?”

“Twenty-one trucks. But fifteen of them were carrying brown sugar, and the remaining six were your dry goods!”

“Alright, drive safely. I’ll be waiting for you here at the Second Cotton Spinning Mill!” Li Yi said with a smile.

“Alright!”

After hanging up, Li Yi immediately told Long Zhanjun the location of Fat Jin’s shop and told him to hurry over there to notify the guy to come inspect the goods!

As for himself, he immediately took Li Yeqiao and headed straight for the cotton mill!

His brother-in-law’s speed was truly unmatched—it saved him a lot of time.

After all, there were less than six weeks left until the Lunar New Year.

If he wanted to capitalize on the rush of people buying clothes for the New Year, he had to produce the first batch of clothes within two weeks and ship them out quickly.

Time was definitely of the essence!

When Li Yi arrived at the cotton mill, Jiang Longcheng was in his office carefully reviewing the contract documents delivered by his secretary.

The contract had been drafted yesterday afternoon by Li Yi and several key factory executives, then sent to the administrative office to be printed overnight in preparation for the signing.

Just as he was looking through them, Li Yi walked in with Li Yeqiao!

“Huh, why are you here so early?” Jiang Longcheng asked, somewhat surprised.

“We came to see if your contracts are ready!” Li Yi said with a smile.

Jiang Longcheng tapped the contracts on the desk and said, “I was just looking at them. What’s the rush?”

“Of course I’m in a hurry. The sooner we sign, the sooner we can start production!”

“You can sign the contract anytime, but you’d better think it through. Once you sign this thing, there’s no turning back!” Jiang Longcheng said.

“Got it!”

Then Li Yi added, “If you’re not busy, would you mind coming with me to take a look around the workwear production workshop?”

“Sure!”

With that, the group left Jiang Longcheng’s office and headed to the workwear production workshop at the back of the building.

The workwear production workshop was located at the very back of the cotton mill; within the entire facility, it was a low-profile department that seemed almost dispensable.

When Li Yi and the others arrived, the workers there were in the middle of a study session.

Due to a shortage of raw materials and a severe backlog of inventory, nearly all production workshops had been shut down.

With production halted, the workers had nothing to do. Fearing they might cause trouble, the factory organized these so-called study sessions and exchange meetings!

Although the goal was to keep everyone’s spirits up, overall, it seemed rather like a distraction from their actual work.

Upon seeing Jiang Longcheng arrive with Li Yi and the others, the workshop director, Tan Chunqiu, immediately came out to greet them, accompanied by several team leaders.

“Director, what brings you here?”

“Just came to check on you all. How have things been lately?” Jiang Longcheng asked.

Director Tan replied with a grim expression, “The workers haven’t been paid for over two months now, and morale is pretty low.”

“Tell everyone that the factory is almost there—we’re working to resolve the wage issue by the end of the month!”

“Really, Director? Do we really have the money?”

Director Tan asked excitedly, his gaunt, swarthy body trembling slightly.

“Of course it’s true!”

Jiang Longcheng then pointed to Li Yi standing beside him and said, “Old Tan, this is my brother-in-law. He’ll be assigning you some work soon, so your workshop needs to cooperate fully!”

Upon hearing that he was the factory director’s brother-in-law, Director Tan dared not be disrespectful and hurriedly replied, “We’ll definitely cooperate and give it our all!”

Although Li Yi had spent a few months at the cotton mill in his previous life, he didn’t know much about this Director Tan.

He looked at the thin, dark-skinned old man missing a front tooth and asked, “Director Tan, could you tell me a bit about our garment production workshop?”

“Sure… sure. Our workshop mainly produces work uniforms for the factory’s employees, and occasionally we take on orders for other factories as well. We used to be pretty busy, but these days…”

“Never mind that. Just tell me about the equipment and staff in your workshop!”

Director Tan hurriedly replied, “Our workshop currently has three production areas: one for cutting, one for sewing, and another for ironing and packaging. At present, the entire workshop has a total of 102 sewing machines, 20 overlock machines, and 155 employees!”

After listening to Director Tan’s introduction, Li Yi was quite satisfied with the conditions of this garment production workshop.

He then asked, “How many sets of work uniforms can each worker produce in a day?”

“That’s hard to say, because we make the shirts and pants separately!”

Director Tan continued, “If we exclude cutting and focus solely on sewing, a skilled worker can produce over 80 shirts a day!”

“As for pants, it’s even faster—at least 120 pairs a day!”

Hearing this, Li Yi began to calculate in his mind.

Yesterday, he had learned roughly the quantity and types of fabric stockpiled in the factory from the warehouse manager.

According to the inventory records, the fabric currently stockpiled in the warehouse included not only cotton but also some polyester and a small amount of printed fabric.

The total amounted to over 36,000 bolts!

Since a standard bolt is 33.3 meters (10 zhang), that meant the total fabric amounted to roughly 360,000 zhang.

Normally, a full set of clothes for an adult requires about 1.25 zhang.

Men require slightly more fabric, while women need a little less, but on average, it’s roughly this amount.

In other words, if all this fabric were used to make clothes, it would be enough for roughly 288,000 sets.

Based on this calculation, if all the sewing machines in the factory were running at full capacity, it would take about 35 days to produce 288,000 sets of tops.

If they were to focus entirely on producing pants, it would take about 23 days.

Added together, that comes to roughly two months—which is close to Li Yi’s estimate.

However, that’s only in an ideal scenario; in reality, it remains to be seen whether the workers at the factory will be able to produce the products he needs.

With that in mind, Li Yi immediately took a stack of draft paper from the shoulder bag he was carrying and handed it to Director Tan.

“Director Tan, take a look—do you think you can produce clothes like this?”

With a hint of puzzlement, Director Tan took the draft paper Li Yi handed him and began to look it over.

Director Tan was a veteran tailor himself, but when he saw the garments sketched on the paper, he was momentarily taken aback.

These garments were unlike anything they had ever made before—they looked strange and out of the ordinary.

Take the pair of pants he was looking at now, for instance. From the waist up, they seemed fine, but the legs were long and wide—they looked just like a giant megaphone!

Although he’d never seen this style before, it actually looked quite nice.

After looking at them for a moment, Director Tan immediately said, “We can make them, but it might take a little time at first!”

Li Yi replied immediately, “As long as we can make them, that’s fine. If possible, could Director Tan and your team please make a few samples based on these drawings? What do you think?”

“Alright, but the materials…”

Before he could finish, Jiang Longcheng immediately interjected, “Go pick up the materials from the warehouse. Just say I approved it!”

“Alright…”

……..