Chapter 373 - The Halo Effect (1/2)

At 3 PM…

In the warehouse in Jingzhou City’s outskirts…

Little Sun and Pei Qian alighted from the car. Tang Yishu followed behind them timidly. She had no idea why her senior had pulled her along, but she did not dare to ask too many questions either.

Zhang Yuan was already standing outside the warehouse, ready to receive them.

The warehouse was not huge. Zhang Yuan had reported beforehand that the warehouse had a total area of about four thousand square meters. There was only one level, and rent cost 0.7 yuan per square meter per day.

In sum, rent cost eighty thousand yuan per month.

Bigger warehouses normally measured ten to twenty thousand square meters. Naturally, rent would be more expensive. However, since this warehouse would mainly store computer parts, four thousand square meters was already more than enough.

Upwind Logistics’ main purpose was to solve the problem of the last kilometer. Other delivery companies would deliver packages to Upwind Logistics, and Upwind Logistics would then deliver those packages to customers’ doorsteps.

Thus, the Upwind courier stations provided most of the storage space required. Upwind Logistics did not need much more storage space at the moment.

However, for various other reasons, some packages were still stored in this warehouse.

For Fish-Catching Internet Cafe and ROF Computer-Installation-which Zhang Yuan was in charge of, working with Upwind Logistics proved to be a win-win situation. Upwind Logistics delivered ROF’s parcels to customers’ doorsteps while ROF allowed Upwind Logistics to store some of their packages in the former’s warehouse.

In any case, they were under the same parent company, and they were not spending their own money. Thus, they were all quite easygoing.

At first, the warehouses around Jingzhou City only served to burn money. They offered great assistance to Boss Pei.

However, ROF’s losses had already turned to profits. Not only could the revenue cover the costs of renting the warehouses, but they could also serve to expand ROF’s business. This pained Pei Qian terribly.

Zhang Yuan felt nervous initially because he had thought that Boss Pei had come to inspect the warehouses for the first time.

Yet, Pei Qian had told him over the phone that he was only going to visit for fun and that Zhang Yuan should not make a mountain out of a molehill.

Zhang Yuan knew that Boss Pei was a practical person who did not like his employees to make a big deal out of him. Thus, Zhang Yuan only bothered to arrive slightly earlier. He had also instructed his employees to tidy the place up, but he did not go so far as to organize a spring cleaning.

He was quite confident about the warehouse’s state.

Zhang Yuan led Boss Pei and the others in.

It was Pei Qian’s first time visiting the warehouse. His first impression was not a bad one. It was neat and tidy, and the lighting was quite good. Various computer parts had been split into sections and displayed on shelves. Although they were a little messy, it still almost passed for being orderly. After all, all of these parts were to be assembled into a system unit, which was the biggest item in the warehouse. They did not take much space.

“Boss Pei, look. These are the shelves where we place various computer parts. Since we order the computer parts in bulk, they would be delivered to this warehouse at regular intervals.

“Once they arrive, someone would be put in charge of moving the parts to their respective shelves.

“We also have an assembly line.

“We use pure manpower, and the process is extremely simple. Boss Pei, it might be quite embarrassing to show you.” Zhang Yuan led Pei Qian around the warehouse as he introduced different parts of it to him.

Obviously, he took a lot of pride in ROF’s computer-installation business. This was his niche after all.

The so-called assembly line was made up of a couple of long work tables lined up side by side.

There was a belt on the work table, and several people were evenly spread out around it. Those people had various individual parts behind them and partly-assembled machines in front of them.

Each person was put in charge of one step in the process, and the various steps took about the same time to complete.

Two people would be put in charge of the more complicated steps that took slightly longer than others, such as cable management. Each of them would work on one machine at a time.

Everyone also had a button in front of them. Once they were done with their machine, they would hit the button. Once everyone hit their respective buttons, the belt on the work tables would automatically move to the right.

That way, everyone only needed to focus on their respective tasks and make sure that they were completed on time. If they finished earlier, they could rest for a while. That was much more efficient than making each of them assemble an entire system unit on their own.

From the first step of installing the CPU into the motherboard to the last step of installing the system lights, everyone would focus on their respective tasks and work in an orderly fashion.

Once the system lights were installed, the machines would be checked. Then, a professional would package the system unit and prepare for it to be shipped to various distribution points around Jingzhou City.

After customers placed their orders, Upwind Logistics’ delivery men would retrieve the machines from various distribution points and deliver them to the customers’ doorsteps.

Pei Qian immediately felt threatened.

This Zhang Yuan was really quite good. He could come up with so many tricks for such an ordinary and boring computer-installation business.

“Not bad.”

Against his true feelings, Pei Qian briefly praised Zhang Yuan so that the latter grinned brightly. After that, Pei Qian led Tang Yishu and Little Sun around the warehouse.

Nothing happened even after they completed their round.

Pei Qian was shocked and slightly disappointed.

Places like warehouses normally contained many hidden threats to safety. For example, there could be electrical, fire, or physical safety hazards.

As Pei Qian walked around the warehouse, he had remained on high alert in case a fire suddenly broke out, a short circuit occurred, or something dropped from a shelf.

Yet, even after they completed their round, nothing happened!

Pei Qian had to say that something had gone wrong with logic-no, metaphysics. He took a closer look around the warehouse and realized that there were indeed no safety hazards.

Since the warehouse was so huge, the shelves were very well spaced out.

Those shelves had only been purchased a few months ago. All of them were very steady, and they all stored digital hardware. Of course, it was almost impossible for collapsing or dangerous stacking to occur. In terms of electric cables, Pei Qian guessed that Zhang Yuan had stuck strictly to safety standards. All electrical guidelines had been strictly adhered to; power points were cased up, mains switches were located outside the warehouse, and everything was inspected and maintained regularly.

All in all, at this stage, it would probably be extremely difficult for one to find a safety hazard in the warehouse! Pei Qian felt melancholic after walking around.