Big Factory of Da Bing Part I

Big Factory of Da Bing

(Part I)

Photo by Ning Zhouhao

Source: Popular Photography

Taking over the family business from his parents, Da Bing established the first modern furniture factory of Maojia Village with an enterprising spirit. However, the bleak economic climate, heated competition brought by giant companies, and all kinds of problems arising within his factory dampen his enthusiasm. Faced with such realities, Da Bing knows well that to be an entrepreneur, he can only set a long-term goal and move toward it step by step as the ants endeavoring to move their houses.

Located at the Daqiao Township of Tianqiao District, Jinan City, Shandong Province near the Yellow River, Maojia Village is an ordinary small village covering an area of less than 800 mu and populated by no more than 500 people. The villagers call the surrounding area 「Hebei」 (north of the Yellow River), and the downtown area 15 kilometers away 「Jinan,」 so as to present the distance and difference between the small village and downtown Jinan. In the recent two decades, as rapid urban development brings tremendous demands, the local villagers have established over 100 furniture workshops in this small area, lifting over 400 people out of the plight of farming on a land of less than 1.3 mu on average. Once a village scratching for enough food and clothing, Maojia Village is now one of the richest among the 72 villages in Daqiao Township.

In March 2011, Gong Wanrong, father of Da Bing (Gong Rongkun), had a photo taken in front of his factory. It can be seen from the picture that this farmer entrepreneur from Maojia Village, dressing just like every other ordinary farmer, did not pay much attention to his looks. Nevertheless, this was one of the largest factories with best economic performance in the village at that time.

In the early spring of 1990, Gong Wanrong, his wife and his mother, with his one-year-old son Gong Rongkun and two-year-old daughter Gong Rongbei in arms, had a photo taken at the Jinan Yellow River Highway Bridge. At some point, the better off villagers began to have their family photos taken at the Bridge every Spring Festival.

In February 2013, Da Bing and his pregnant wife, Ma Fei, were taking a photo in their wheat field in front of his father』s Wanrong Office Furniture Factory. Four months ago, under the suggestion of Ma Fei, the couple rented a booth in a large furniture mall and started their own business. Five months later, their daughter, Gong Xiaoyi, was born.

After the Spring Festival of 2014, the furniture industry went through a slump season, with many factories halting furniture production. In the whole village, there was only Da Bing』s factory still recruiting workers. About ten months later, he tore down the old factory buildings and constructed a two-story building of over 3,000 square meters there.

Six months after they got married, Da Bing and Ma Fei had this photo taken in their bedroom of the new house. There were two laptops in the room and all the furniture was chosen by the hostess. The newly married couple lived with Da Bing』s parents in their old house in the village. When the new factory was established in 2015, their parents moved to the new room at the second floor of the factory building, leaving Da Bing and Ma Fei the old house.

The year 1986 was special for Maojia Village. Gong Wanrong, together with Sun Chuanzhi brothers and another fellow villager, came to work in a woodenware factory run by a Shanghainese in Duandian Township in the western suburbs of Jinan, hoping to earn some money and help with family expenses with the ancestral carpentry. The woodenware factory manufactured stylish wall units. The southern boss, shrewd as he was, feared that someone would learn how to make such wall units, so he only let the workers prepare skeletons, and chose to make covers and paste panels after work himself. However, the four famer carpenters were also smart. Managing to master the techniques of wall unit production, they went back to Maojia Village and set up the village』s first furniture workshop. When not busy farming, they would produce wall units popular downtown. Gong Wanrong acted not only as a boss and a worker, but also as a salesman. Even his wife had to come help out when it was really busy. At that time, selling a set of wall units could turn over as much as 200 or 300 yuan. On that account, the workshop could make a revenue of 6,000 to 7,000 yuan a year, greatly surprising the farmers who had been plowing and sowing on this land for several decades but still lived in destitution. Gong Wanrong recalled that, from then on, he had been living a better life year by year, buying some new stuff for his family every year, and thus finally started to look forward to the future.

The business flourished in 1988, with the urban demand for wall units far exceeding the supply. On this occasion, Gong Wanrong, Gong Zhentang and Sun Chuanzhu led a dozen households to start a furniture workshop. Three years later, Gong Wanrong established his own workshop. In 1997, Gong Wanrong registered the trademark 「Wanrong」 and applied for industrial and commercial registration of his factory. Shortly after that, the factory produced the first batch of computer tables, the so-called 「white tables」 (for computer tables available then were mostly made of white chipboards), in areas north of the Yellow River. Even till today, these white tables are still the main products of Maojia Village.

In August 2015, Da Bing participated in the Jinan International Furniture Fair and reached cooperation intent with 12 parties within three days. Though incomparable with the pomp last year, the results were still better than what the others had achieved. Da Bing, the first time in a fair, was quite satisfied.

Da Bing came to theworkshop to discuss with workers about the details of production. Many times,he had to make lots of decisions himself and strike a balance among productquality, production efficiency and production cost.

Da Bing was at the fair.

On the afternoon of the second day of the fair, fatigue arrived.

A Big Modern Factory in Maojia Village

As time goes by, the businesses started by parents have been passed down to their children. The young people of Maojia Village, mostly not highly educated, are actually the first-generation farmers who haven』t suffered from hunger instead of being the second-generation rich. Different from their parents, these young people know little about farming, and in businesses, they are confronted with a higher labor and material cost as well as product dumping of furniture factories in south China. As the margin narrows, it seems hard for the furniture business to sustain. If the factories continue to operate under the original model and in the original scale, the 「white table」 business, which has been running for nearly two decades, can dry up any day. Therefore, many young people prefer taking a job in Jinan to running a workshop back home. Adding up the salary and rental of their factories, they can earn several hundred thousand yuan each year and are thus able to live a relaxing and comfortable life.

In the early morning, the workers started their day after a simple breakfast. In Jinjiagou Village, Rizhao City, Shandong Province, the working hours started from 7:00 am to 6:00 pm for six consecutive days. Da Bing noticed that except for a beautiful memorial archway, Jinjiagou Village far lagged behind Maojia Village in other aspects.

Da Bing and Ma Fei were on their way to the furniture mall. Ma Fei is mainly responsible for furniture sales while Da Bing takes charge of production. In the villagers』 eyes, Ma Fei is not only beautiful but also capable of doing lots of things.

After furniture delivery and installation, the workers could not find a restaurant nearby. Therefore, Da Bing needed to drive to bring them lunch from the nearby village.

It had been a long time since Da Bing came to the office because he was busy delivering and installing furniture. The furniture pieces in the office were covered with a thick layer of dust.

After the fair, to save space and transportation costs, Da Bing stuffed the objects into every space of the truck.

The second floor of the factory building is used for offices and living quarters, and also a playground for kids. Da Bing』s parents live here, helping him look after the factory and take care of his daughter.

Gong Rongkun, son of Gong Wanrong, was born in 1989 and nicknamed Dabing. He used to work as an apprentice on the assembly line of a large state-owned enterprise, earning over 2,000 yuan a month, which was a pretty high salary at that time. However, unable to bear the repetitive auxiliary work and the workshop director』s demise, he gave up the job decisively and went back home. In 2009, Da Bing established a workshop dealing in office desk production and painting spraying, but ended up with a failure two years later. In 2012, the year when Da Bing and Ma Fei got married, the couple rented a booth in the Jinan Dongya Furniture Market with Ma』s dowry, started furniture business with the help of his sister, and earned their first bucket of gold. Da Bing believed that doing business in the same model and scale as their parents did was a road that led nowhere. What he wanted to do was to bring a significant change to their product quality and style as well as production scale and efficiency.

In 2014, the 25-year-old Da Bing officially took over his father』s Wanrong Office Furniture Factory that had been running for over two decades and was once the largest factory with the best economic performance in Maojia Village.

After the Spring Festival, the couple went to Guangzhou twice for advanced woodworking machinery worth over 500,000 yuan, and then went to Qingdao and Tai』an for market investigation. In April, they registered their own trademark 「Runhe.」 Da Bing refused to duplicate others』 products and resolutely rejected his father』s suggestion of 「imitation.」 He was determined to manufacture the best products with the best equipment, raw materials and designs, which was truly an unprecedented practice in Maojia Village.

However, seeing his son expanding business at so fast a pace, Gong Wanrong was extremely anxious. He said: 「We all like invincible generals, but those who lose do not die. Da Bing is sort of like Napoleon.」 Speaking from his experience accumulated over decades, he knew that the sales always went down in spring, and even more so in summer and autumn. As the economic situation declined currently, the logistics center located nearby experienced great depression, further proving his judgment of the market. The new factory ran at too high a cost yet the sales volume remained small. In fact, good equipment, workers, materials and workshops would not necessarily bring a larger output or a higher profit. 「If the factory continues to operate like this, once the capital chain breaks for one month or two, the factory will have to be shut down.」 Da Bing, however, had his own opinion: The products could only sell well with a favorable quality and price, and only through an overall upgrading could the factory roll out products that fully satisfied the new market demands.

Da Bing even changed his status of QQ and WeChat into the famous line 「Alive, I live a heroic life; Dead, as a ghost king died」 written by Li Qingzhao, a poetess in the Ming Dynasty. He bought a tea set carved with the Chinese characters meaning 「reaching the peak of perfection」 and placed it in a prominent position in his office to entertain the guests. Besides, Da Bing took the liking of clothes of 「Nike,」 whose logo seemed to him as a check mark.

On August 8, Da Bing tore town the old factory buildings of his father』s factory and built a two-story building covering an area of 3,000 square meters. As is designed, the first floor of the new factory building is used as workshops while the second living quarters, offices and special product exhibition hall. This is the largest furniture factory boasting the most advanced techniques in Maojia Village. In addition, he booked two booths at the Jinan International Furniture Fair held in August. To further implement his 「Big Factory」 plan that had just started, Da Bing did a lot of things, including designing new products, improving product quality, increasing workers』 salaries and welfare, paying the 「five social insurances and one housing fund」 (endowment insurance, medical insurance, unemployment insurance, employment injury insurance, maternity insurance, and housing fund), training workers for their loyalty, calculating costs and techniques required for each product, paying piece wages, inviting competent workers and managers to hold share of the company, expanding market by participating in large-scale procurement bidding, and thus successfully channeling the low-end products of Maojia Village somewhere beyond the 「flea market.」 In the next one to two years, the factory would take up 20% – 30% shares of Jinan』s high-end office furniture market with the same quality as 「Guangdong furniture」 but at a lower price.

Apart from establishing the largest factory of Maojia Village, Da Bing has made many other 「firsts」 in the village: He is the first young boss that does not need to work or deliver products himself, the first to use the fingerprint attendance machine, the first to draw up production rules and regulations, and the first to provide free lunch and accommodation to his workers.

Da Bing likes raising carrier pigeons. But now, too busy to train them, he has to raise some precious pigeon species the way others bring up chicken.

After installing and testing all equipment at the vendor』s place, Da Bing still had to figure out the operation details and adjustment methods little by little.

Da Bing was assigning work to the factory』s new manager Mr. Wang. To 「dig」 Mr. Wang out from another company, Da Bing spent lots of money and promised work for both Mr. Wang and his wife, in the hope that he could help with the factory』s production and design.