Chapter 172 Rapidly Entering the Industrial Age

Joseph first visited Marat's injury, and then rushed to Nancy.

Toul is less than 5 miles away from Nancy, so just after noon, his convoy arrived at the newly built Nancy Industrial Development Zone.

The development zone is located beside the Meurthe River, surrounded by an endless gray stone wall, covering an area of ​​500 to 600 acres.

Even from the development zone, Joseph could see smoke rising from the development zone into the air - there are coal mines everywhere, so coal is widely used as fuel in production. After the steam engine began to be used, the consumption of coal increased greatly.

When the officials of the industrial development zone learned that the prince had arrived, they hurriedly put down their work and gathered at the west gate of the development zone to greet him.

The person in charge of the development zone was named Alexandre Rameau, who was not a local official in Nancy, but was recommended by Mirabeau to manage the development zone. He also ran a large iron factory.

As the initiator and planner of the development zone, Joseph had a very high prestige here, surrounded by hundreds of officials and workshop owners. The surroundings were filled with respectful and enthusiastic greetings and praises.

Joseph was unable to refuse the hospitality, so he gave a speech to motivate the morale, which allowed him to "get away".

Ramo and a dozen key managers of the development zone began to take him to visit the park. The others were reluctant to leave, and followed him cautiously from fifty or sixty meters behind.

"Your Highness, that's the iron smelting workshop. The workshops of the Gregor brothers and Viscount Olivier are both very large." Ramo pointed to a large building covered in black smoke by the river, and remembered all the data very clearly. "The two workshops have a total of 7 furnaces and 9 forgings. 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, and the quality of the iron ingots produced is very high. "

Joseph encouraged the two ironworks, but he was not very satisfied.

50,000 pounds sounds like a lot, but it is only 25 tons per day and 7,000 tons per year.

You know, this is almost 90% of Nancy's steel production.

At present, the annual iron production in France is only about 120,000 tons, which is far from enough for the Industrial Revolution.

And Joseph himself is not very familiar with the steelmaking process. He can only think of a few theories such as "using coke" and "blast steelmaking". If he wants to increase production in the short term, he may have to expand the scale.

In fact, if you want to have a substantial increase in steel production, the key is It is demand.

If a large number of railroad tracks can be laid across the country, under the stimulation of strong demand, capital will be willing to invest in the steelmaking industry, which will then give birth to new technologies.

The prerequisite for building railways is trains. The prerequisite for trains is efficient and mature steam engines.

Joseph thought to himself that it depends on the progress of Murdoch...

Ramo took him through the buildings on the river bank and introduced several glass workshops, ironworks workshops and coal crushing yards along the way.

Until a light gray two-story building appeared not far away, Ramo said with some joy: "Your Highness, that is the 'production management consulting company' just established by Mr. Jeansonne.

"The 'factoryization' and 'production standardization' you requested are currently being promoted by them."

Joseph nodded. This consulting company was exactly what he asked Jeansonne to establish. After receiving his production standardization training, the latter rushed to Nancy to teach new management concepts.

The transition from manual workshops to factories is an important task of the industrial development zone, which will serve as a model for the whole of France.

Although there is only one word difference between "workshop" and "factory", the connotation is a whole industrial revolution apart!

The so-called "workshop" is simply to gather handicraftsmen in a large courtyard. Except for the larger scale, it is no different from the original small workshop, and the management is basically based on the whip of the workshop owner.

The "factory" is the product of the industrial revolution. First of all, there must be a complete set of management systems, from the most basic late and early departure, to the further class and group leaders, and then to the standardization of production, so that production efficiency is linearly improved.

In addition, the employment method is also very different - the factory is a completely capitalist employment system, and the workers and factories establish labor contracts with the freedom of two-way choice. The workshop is usually a craftsman plus apprentice model. The apprentice is personally dependent on the master, and the guilds of various industries supervise and solidify this dependence.

For example, in France now, if you want to enter a certain industry, it is not enough to master the technology of this industry. You first have to find a master to lead you to the meeting and start a 5 to 7-year apprenticeship, during which the master can exploit you at will. After becoming an apprentice, you can be promoted to a helper. You can work independently in name, but you still have to rely on your master in many aspects. It will take another 3 to 5 years to obtain guild registration and become a real craftsman, and then start to exploit apprentices...

This model is a serious drag on industrial development. Many times, things that can be put on the job after a few months of training in the factory have to be delayed for several years or even more than ten years because of the rules of the guild.

The last point is that the factory must have a higher pursuit and adaptability to new technologies.

Try to use machine automation production as much as possible to obtain higher profits. This is the characteristic of the factory.

The transformation from workshop to factory, if it follows the normal pace of history, will take more than ten years or even longer of the baptism of the industrial revolution to be gradually completed.

Under the guidance of Joseph, the industrial development zone will directly use the most efficient model and run into the industrial age.

When factory production matures, we can use the killer weapon of industrial production - assembly line operation.

By then, French factories will slaughter all European opponents!

Rameau said: "Your Highness, although the development zone has completely banned guilds, the craftsmen are already accustomed to the master-apprentice model. 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, don't be impatient, everything is based on the premise of not affecting the production of the workshop. "Joseph knew that such a large-scale management model improvement could never be achieved overnight.

"Yes, Your Highness. "

Lamo then took Joseph through the dormitory area, school, hospital and other areas of the development zone.

These supporting facilities are of great help to the factory. The dormitory alone can reduce a lot of costs in the workshop, so that they can even recruit homeless people to work in the factory. The hospital has greatly increased the workers' attendance rate.

After walking for a while, Lamo pointed to the large building complex in front of him that was constantly emitting white smoke: "Your Highness, that is the French Union Steam Engine Company."