RUICHANG, China – When Steven Du took over his parents’ factory producing temperature control systems in Shanghai, one of the first changes he made was to turn on the plant’s heating in winter – something his frugal forebears were reluctant to do.
This do-or-die mission of tech upgrades and practical changes largely falls on a group of people in their 20s and 30s known as “chang er dai,” or “the second factory generation,” a play on the derogative term for spoiled, rich children, “fu er dai.” Du spoke on the condition that his business not be named to protect the privacy of his semi-retired parents, whom he said were in their 50s and largely leave factory affairs to him.He went to high school and university in New Zealand, specializing in electrical engineering. He moved to the United States, working at Apple supplier Foxconn’s Wisconsin facilities. He studied Taiwanese and Japanese production methods, focused on reducing inefficiencies.
He remodeled the factory floor to allow forklifts to drive around easily, grouping storage and production units differently to minimize physical effort for a workforce whose average age is around 50. A worker now walks 300 meters to complete the more complex tasks, down from 1 kilometer, and needs less than a third of the time to do it.
At Ruichang City Yixiang Agricultural Products, workers in green uniforms place duck eggs into cups attached to a conveyor belt that feeds a vacuum-packing machine. A new screen above the machine displays the speed at which the eggs are sealed and estimates average output per worker, as well as the time and manpower needed to pack 10,000 eggs.
But he felt he had to step in, at least for a few years, and convince his now 55-year-old parents that tech upgrades, and setting up new distribution channels on e-commerce platforms, were worth investing in. Some segments, such as the heavily robotized electric vehicle industry, are disrupting global markets thanks to state subsidies, as well as foreign capital and know-how.