Chapter 172 Rapidly Entering the Industrial Age
Joseph first went to visit Marat's injury, and then rushed towards Nancy.
Thule is less than 5 miles away from Nancy, so just after noon, his motorcade has arrived at the newly built Nancy Industrial Development Zone.
The development zone is located next to the Meerte River, surrounded by an endless gray stone wall, covering an area of five to six hundred acres.
Even far away from the development zone, Joseph could already see smoke rising into the air from the development zone - there are coal mines everywhere here, so coal is commonly used as fuel in production. After the use of steam engines, coal consumption increased greatly.
When the officials of the Industrial Development Zone learned of the Crown Prince's arrival, they quickly put aside what they were doing and gathered at the west gate of the development zone to greet him.
The person in charge of the development zone headed by him was named Alexandre Rameau. He was not a local official in Nancy, but was recommended by Mirabeau to manage the development zone. It also runs a large ironworks factory.
As the initiator and planner of the development zone, Joseph has high prestige here and is surrounded by hundreds of officials and workshop owners. There were respectful and enthusiastic greetings and praises all around.
Unable to resist the kindness, Joseph gave an impromptu morale-boosting speech and was able to "get away".
Ramo and a dozen key managers of the development zone began to take him around the park. The others were unwilling to leave at all, and followed them with their heads peeping from fifty to sixty meters away.
"Your Highness, that's the iron-making workshop over there. The workshops of the Gregor brothers and Viscount Olivier are both very large." Rameau pointed to the large building shrouded in black smoke by the river. He remembered all the data very clearly. , "The two workshops have a total of 7 furnaces and 9 forging workshops. They can produce more than 50,000 pounds of iron ingots every day.
“Especially the Gregor brothers’ workshop, which also uses the latest reverberatory furnace, produces very high-quality iron ingots.”
Joseph encouraged the two ironworks, but in fact he was not very satisfied.
50,000 pounds sounds like a lot, but it actually means a daily output of 25 tons and an annual output of 7,000 tons.
You know, this is almost 90% of Nancy's steel output.
At present, the annual iron production in France is only about 120,000 tons, which is far from enough for the industrial revolution.
Moreover, Joseph himself was not very familiar with the steelmaking process. He could only think of a few theories such as "using coke" and "blast steelmaking". If he wanted to increase production in the short term, he would probably have to rely on expanding the scale.
In fact, the key to a substantial increase in steel production is demand.
If a large number of rail tracks can be laid across the country, there will be capital willing to invest in the steelmaking industry under the stimulation of strong demand, thus giving rise to new technologies.
The prerequisite for building railways is trains. The prerequisite for a train is an efficient and mature steam engine.
Joseph thought to himself, it depends on the progress on Murdoch's side...
Ramo took him through the buildings on the river bank and introduced several glass workshops, ironwork workshops and coal crushing yards along the way.
Until a light gray two-story building appeared not far away, Rameau said with some joy: "Your Highness, that is the 'Production Management Consulting Company' just established by Mr. Jean Saone.
"The 'factoryization' and 'production standardization' you requested are currently being promoted by them."
Joseph nodded. This consulting company was founded by him at his command. After the latter received his production standardization training, he came to Nancy and was responsible for teaching new management concepts.
The transition from handicraft workshops to factories is an important task for the industrial development zone and will serve as a model for the whole of France.
Although there is only one word difference between "workshop" and "factory", their connotations differ by an entire industrial revolution!
The so-called "workshop" simply gathers handicraft craftsmen in a large courtyard. Except for being larger in scale, it is no different from the original small workshop. Management basically relies on the whip of the workshop owner.
The "factory" is a product of the industrial revolution. The first is to have a complete set of management systems, from the most basic of arriving late and leaving early, to further responsibilities of class and team leaders, to production standardization, so that production efficiency will increase linearly.
In addition, the employment methods are also very different - the factory is a completely capitalist employment system. Workers and the factory establish labor contracts and have the freedom to choose in both directions. The workshop is usually a craftsman plus apprentice model. The apprentice is physically attached to the master, and this attachment is supervised and solidified by the guilds in each industry.
For example, in France now, if you want to enter a certain industry, it does not mean that you have mastered the technology of this industry. You first have to find a master to lead you for a meeting and start a 5 to 7 year apprenticeship, during which the master can exploit you at will. After you graduate and become a helper, you can nominally work alone, but you still have to rely on your master in many aspects. It will take another 3 to 5 years to obtain guild registration, become a real craftsman, and then start exploiting apprentices...
This model has a very serious drag on industrial development. In many cases, factories can take a few months of training to get on the job, but because of the rules of the guild, they have to work hard for several years or even more than ten years.
The last point is that factories must have a higher pursuit and adaptability to new technologies.
Use machines to automate production as much as possible to obtain higher profits. This is the characteristic of the factory.
If the transformation from workshop to factory follows the normal pace of history, it will take more than ten years or even more of the Industrial Revolution to be gradually completed.
Under Joseph's guidance, the industrial development zone will directly use the most efficient model and enter the industrial age.
When factoryization matures, the killer weapon of industrial production—assembly line operations—can be used.
By then, French factories will slaughter all opponents in Europe!
Ramo said from the side: "Your Highness, although guilds have been completely banned in the development zone, the craftsmen have become accustomed to the master-apprentice model, and it will take some time to completely change.
"As for standardized production... it is still being promoted, and no workshop can implement it."
"Well, this is normal. But you guys, don't be impatient. Everything is done without affecting the production of the workshop." Joseph knew that such a large-scale management model improvement could never be achieved overnight.
"Yes, Your Highness."
Ramo then took Joseph through the dormitories, schools, hospitals and other areas of the development zone.
These supporting facilities are of great help to the settled factories. The dormitories alone can reduce a lot of costs for the workshops, allowing them to even recruit homeless people to work in the factories. The hospital has significantly increased worker productivity.
After walking for a while, Rameau motioned to the large building complex ahead that was constantly emitting white smoke: "Your Highness, that is the United Steam Engine Company of France."
