Chapter 62 KITA
The Obsidian record player is currently the bottom-line product of Shirakawa Electric. Although its sales are not very good, it is unknown what its prospects will be after the upgrade.
But at least everyone is familiar with it and is most likely to succeed.
In Shirakawa Feng's estimation, as long as it does not make a loss and can maintain the normal operation of Shirakawa Electric, that would be its greatest contribution.
Once a factory stops production, not only will it hit the confidence of its own employees, but it will also quickly lose the customers and sales channels that it had managed to maintain before.
If you want to pick it up again in the future, you will need to invest more manpower and resources.
This is also the reason why many manufacturers continue to produce even at a loss. As long as the factory is still running, there is hope. Once production stops, everything is over.
After the meeting, Shirakawa Kaede introduced Yamashita Daiji to Yasuda Masaaki.
Daiji Yamashita is a student of the Department of Mechanical Information Engineering, and Yasuda is also good at mechanical design, so he has a ready-made master.
Moreover, Shirakawa Electric is currently short of talent and has no extra money to recruit people.
A student like Daiji Yamashita is the perfect fit. He has no problem drawing blueprints and helping Masaaki Yasuda.
After leaving the conference room, Shirakawa Feng called Assistant Xiaosong again. "Xiaosong, go check who owns the patent for the Walkman later?"
"Huh?" Assistant Komatsu was a little confused. Is there any need to ask? Of course it's Sony.
President, you just said that this is a revolutionary product of Sony.
"Don't check in Japan, focus on overseas areas." Seeing that she didn't understand, Baichuan Feng added, "Mainly Europe and the United States, don't ask about other areas.
If you find it, try to ask about the patent authorization. Be sure to emphasize to the other party that we are a small company and are just trying to promote it. "
The Sony Walkman has just been released, and few people know about its current popularity.
Now is the best time to discuss authorization. If you miss it, it will not be so easy to get it later.
Although Assistant Komatsu became more and more confused the more she listened, she still carefully wrote down the president's special instructions.
Shirakawa Kaede didn't know who invented the Walkman, but he knew it was definitely not Sony.
Sony is at most the number one manufacturer, not the inventor of the Walkman.
Since he has decided to imitate, Shirakawa Kaede is naturally not afraid of Sony's attack in the future, but it is better to keep a hand to be safe.
It is now 1979, and RB's electrical appliance industry is still at the end of its wild era and is still full of wildness.
Just look at the so-called patent law in RB now and you will know that the "pro-patent" policy was only promulgated a few years ago.
Most of the time, the "weak intellectual property protection system" is still implemented, which limits the scope of patent protection and adopts the patent application principle of "first to file" rather than "first to invent".
To put it bluntly, it is to encourage RB enterprises to "learn" from foreign countries in order to achieve technology diffusion and enhance the competitiveness of local enterprises.
Look, Shirakawa Electric is fully responding to the government’s call and seriously “learning” from Sony.
As for if Sony dares to sue Shirakawa Electric for infringement in the future, believe it or not, Shirakawa Feng will slap him in the face with the foreign authorization letter.
It is hard to say who will sue whom at that time.
In the next few days, Shirakawa Kaede and Yamashita Daiji basically stayed in the workshop, working with Yasuda and others to upgrade the Obsidian record player.
Although he is the president, he was also a science and engineering student in his previous life, so Shirakawa Kaede knows a little about technology.
At this time, the machine tool in front of him was cutting the base and turntable of the record player. With the help of Daiji Yamashita, the upgraded drawings were completed in just one night.
The equipment is operated personally by Kazuo Yamaguchi, who has been in this field for decades and is very experienced.
Wearing goggles, Yamaguchi carefully removed the processed parts, rinsed and wiped them, and took them aside to assemble them on site.
The bases of high-end record players are basically made of metal or thick walnut, which is good for shock resistance and ensures the smooth operation of the vinyl records.
As for the Obsidian record player, it is made of plastic. It is cheap.
If you want to do low-end products, you must be aware of that. If you have a clear market positioning, you will naturally find your audience.
After installing the motor, belt, turntable, and counterweight one by one, Yasuda turned on the switch and put on the record.
A pleasant piano sound came, the sound was steady, natural, and somewhat soft.
This is the same record that Shirakawa Kaede used in the conference room last time. It no longer has the hoarseness and tremolo of the past. The sound quality has been significantly improved in terms of human ear recognition.
Everyone's frowns relaxed, and their tired expressions slightly eased. But everyone held their breath and waited until the record was over before they breathed a sigh of relief.
"Well done!" Baichuan Feng raised his hand and applauded.
"Wow~Wow~" Yasuda and the others also clapped their hands excitedly. It was a success and worth celebrating.
Among them, Daiji Yamashita was the most enthusiastic. After all, it was the first product he participated in, and he felt a sense of accomplishment.
In fact, such difficulty is not a big deal for Yasuda and his team. But the president, Shirakawa Kaede, participated in the whole process and ate and cooked with everyone for several days.
His enthusiasm for getting things done deserves their respect. He may be young, or not so experienced, but he is worthy of the responsibility of being the president.
"President Shirakawa, are we officially going to start production now?" Yamaguchi was convinced by the president's call.
"Wait a little longer." Baichuan Feng frowned and looked at the record player in front of him, feeling that it was not so pleasing to the eye.
"Eh" Everyone was confused. Wasn't the renovation already completed? There was nothing wrong with it.
Shirakawa Feng touched the base of the record player and it felt good. Although it was made of plastic, it was baked with a layer of piano black, and the surface was smooth and shiny. It looked mysterious and elegant.
But the acrylic transparent turntable is a bit out of place in the middle, and he can even see the internal parts through the turntable. It's too low-end and looks cheap at first glance.
Shirakawa Feng took down the transparent turntable and fiddled with it for a while. He turned to look at Yasuda Masaaki and said, "Mr. Yasuda, can the surface be electroplated?"
"Electroplated?" Yasuda was stunned. "That's fine, but what material does President Shirakawa want to be plated on?"
"Imitation gold," Baichuan Feng said neatly.
Seeing that everyone was puzzled, he explained, "Panasonic's turntables are all made of copper-zinc alloy. We don't have such a high cost budget, but surface electroplating is still possible."
In addition to being shock-resistant, metal turntables also look very beautiful. Consumers can easily tell which is better between the bright yellow metal color and the transparent acrylic board.
When Baichuan Feng said this, everyone understood. As for the superficial work, it's okay to do it.
In Shirakawa Kaede's imagination, the piano black is mysterious and elegant, with a dark gold round turntable in the middle. Tsk, the grade can be upgraded by at least one or two levels.
The current aesthetic taste of Yasuda and his colleagues is really frustrating. Maybe in their eyes, as long as something is acceptable and usable, it is enough.
However, if you want to compete in the market, appearance cannot be ignored, especially for consumer electronics , after all, the first thing customers see is not the performance of the product, but whether its appearance is attractive.
"Also, we need to change our logo as well." After saying that, Shirakawa Feng took out a pen and quickly wrote a few letters on the paper.
Everyone came closer to take a closer look at "KITA".
"KITA is an abbreviation of the Romanized word kaitakusha, which means "pioneer".
I hope that Shirakawa Electric can always maintain its pioneering and enterprising spirit, and that one day people will think of Shirakawa Electric when they see KITA.
I hope that one day KITA will become a synonym for innovation and reliability. "Baichuan Feng looked at everyone with a burning gaze, and he did not hide his ambition.
Although at that time Shirakawa Electric was just a little-known company with no sense of existence.
But in the past few days, Baichuan Feng has proved to everyone with his actions and determination that his ambition is not just ambition, but is put into action down to earth.
This surging enthusiasm invisibly infected everyone, even though he was wearing a workshop uniform and his hair was a little messy, and he didn't look like a president at all.
But everyone saw in him a rare quality that only industrialists possess: a willingness to not give up easily, strong drive and ambition.
In that case, let’s do it!
"Let your imagination run wild and keep improving!"
The unanimous voices of the crowd echoed in the small workshop, and they answered his vision with the purpose of Shirakawa Electric that Shirakawa Feng had previously proposed.
"Okay!" Baichuan Feng smiled happily.
From today on, this place truly belongs to him, and this place truly becomes Shirakawa Electric.
From now on, KITA is Shirakawa and Shirakawa is KITA. Just like Matsushita and Panasonic, there is no direct connection between the two.
Panasonic is neither the Romanization of Matsushita nor its English translation. But when people see Panasonic, the first thing that comes to their mind is Matsushita.
Shirakawa Kaede's idea was simple: the logo must be simple, easy to remember , and catchy. KI~TA~, he even thought of the future advertising slogan.
The upgrade of the Obsidian record player has been basically completed, and the next step is trial production, which is in charge of Kazuo Yamaguchi.
Masaaki Yasuda and Daiji Yamashita have already started thinking about making a copy of Walkman...well, just for reference.
As for Baichuan Feng, he had another thing to do today.
