645 Let Me Find An Expert Firs
The CNC system isn’t installed?!
Other than Lu Zhou, everyone else in the warehouse was stunned.
Secretary Wu from Shenyang Machine Tool sighed. He took out a cigarette from his pocket and walked out of the warehouse. Director Li from the State Administration for National Defense stared at the two machines silently. His eyes were filled with disappointment.
Yang Zhongquan almost looked like his lottery ticket was stolen. He shook his head and sighed.
“CNC system hasn’t been installed… I knew there is no such thing as a free lunch.”
In the beginning, he didn’t understand how Lu Zhou was able to use €20 million to buy this batch of equipment since the two machine tools alone were worth more than that. However, he finally understood why. It turned out that Lu Zhou bought a “soulless version”.
Lu Zhou stared at everyone and quietly asked, “Isn’t it just the control system?”
He didn’t think this was a big deal at all…
However, he didn’t expect to piss off the engineers surrounding him.
Especially Yang Zhongquan; he couldn’t help but berate Lu Zhou.
“Do you know what the CNC system even does?”
Lu Zhou: “…”
Lu Zhou was a mathematician; he didn’t know a lot about machinery control systems.
But even then, he didn’t think this was a big deal.
When Director Li saw that these two people were about to get into an argument again, he coughed and tried to act as the peacemaker.
“This machine tool is quite special. There’s the software part and the hardware part. The hardware is simple. It involves materials, hydraulics, pneumatic components, bearings, servo motors, etc. Every part of the machine affects its accuracy. As for the software, that determines whether the hardware can be used in actual production.”
Lu Zhou nodded and kind of understood what was going on.
“The software is the CNC system?”
Yang Zhongquan sneered.
“No sh*t, Sherlock, what now, do you plan on manually controlling the machine?”
Relatively speaking, industrial machine tools didn’t require high-end computer chips. However, they were highly dependent on CNC system algorithms. To achieve the highest degree of accuracy, an excellent machine tool had to be combined with an excellent CNC system.
According to the report from the European Association of the Machine Tool Industries (CECIMO), it clearly stated that the main competitors of the European’s machine tool industry were Japan and Asia, while Japan and Europe were around the same level. China’s machine tools had the advantage of being cheap, and their technology was gradually increasing. However, China was still behind Europe and Japan.
One of the reasons was because the Chinese produced machine tools by using imported CNC systems, such as systems from Japan. Not only did this add to the cost, but it also caused China to fall behind in terms of machine tool software.
Now that the machine tools were here without a control system, even though they weren’t completely worthless, their values were halved, at the very least. Also, it was halved for the companies that planned on reverse-engineering the machine tools. For the companies that planned on using these machine tools, these were worthless.
When Yang Zhongquan saw Lu Zhou silently standing there, he thought Lu Zhou was distressed over wasting money, so Yang Zhongquan began to gloat.
“You might as well sell both of the machine tools to us, they’re useless for you anyway. Might as well melt them down and recycle them. Don’t worry, we’ll still pay you €20 million.”
Lu Zhou ignored him. He looked at Director Li and asked, “Can’t we just buy a system and install it?”
Director Li shook his head and said, “It’s difficult. If you bought it through legitimate channels, it would be fine, but this… is a bit difficult.”
Lu Zhou instantly realized what the director was talking about.
The main part was that these two machine tools were considered “illegal goods”. Everyone around the country was trying to look for these two machines. It wasn’t as if Lu Zhou could knock on Siemens’ door and just ask for a system?
Especially since the controllable fusion energy negotiations were still going on, he couldn’t do anything that would affect the negotiations.
As for installing a Chinese CNC system…
It would be useless, Chinese systems were no match for this monster.
Lu Zhou looked to the side.
“I’ll find some engineers and try to figure it out.”
Yang Zhongquan couldn’t help but say, “Ah, if you can figure this machine tool system out, I’ll eat this machine.”
“Okay, I’ll remember that.”
Lu Zhou didn’t bother arguing with him, he didn’t have the time nor did he care.
Director Li shook his head.
Old engineers with a bad temper like this couldn’t be stopped. Lu Zhou, on the other hand, was quite easy-going. However, that was based on the premise that the other party was also polite.
After all, Lu Zhou was an internationally-renowned scholar. Even though he wasn’t a machine tool expert, Yang Zhongquan should be a little more respectful.
Overall, the customs office did a bad job. Not only did they forgo telling Jinling Institute for Advanced Study about the arrival of the equipment, but they also didn’t immediately report this to the higher-ups. Instead, they quickly contacted engineers from the industry for inspection.
In any case, Yang Zhongquan and Lu Zhou were two pillars of the country.
Even though this was out of Director Li’s control, he still hoped that these two could be on good terms…
Most people in the warehouse left, leaving two engineers and a few Institute for Advanced Study security guards behind. One of the machine tools was going to be moved to another warehouse, while the other one was going to be taken away from the State Administration for National Defense.
Secretary Wu stayed with Director Li. Yang Zhongquan, on the other hand, obviously didn’t care about this anymore. He went into his car and got back to his hotel.
As for Lu Zhou, he didn’t waste any time here either. After he told the research institute about the situation, he went back to his office and began to research the Yang-Mills existence and mass gap problem. When the sun was setting, he went downstairs to the cafeteria for some dinner.
Wang Peng sat across from Lu Zhou and casually asked, “This is bad, right?”
Using his chopsticks, Lu Zhou picked some meat into his bowl of rice as he said nonchalantly, “It’s not bad at all, they’re just overreacting.”
Wang Peng looked at Lu Zhou and said, “But… the chief engineer from Shenyang Machine Tool said that there is no CNC system? That system is important, right?”
Even though Lu Zhou wasn’t an expert in machine tools, he was vaguely familiar with hardware and software interactions.
However, Lu Zhou still looked carefree as he continued to gorge on his food.
“Their opinions don’t matter. I’ll find an expert and talk with them.”