Just after eight o'clock that morning, a commercial vehicle covered with yellow mud was parked at the door of the workshop. The English with a Johannesburg accent mixed with the sound of the workshop machines floated in: "Can your high-end packaging machine production line really handle our African 'mixed-blood beans'?" The South African merchant who led the team, Old Tom, took off his sunglasses and touched the equipment we were debugging again and again with his fingers - thanks to Master Zhang who wiped the production line in advance.
It can be said that Old Tom came with "test questions". He took out three bags of coffee beans from his suitcase: sun-dried Ethiopian native species, washed Kenyan AA, and a blended bean mixed with Robusta. "I heard that your high-end packaging machine production line can automatically identify different types of beans?" As soon as he finished speaking, our operator Xiao Liu had already poured the first bag of beans into the feed port. The intelligent control system automatically switched to the light roasting mode, the nitrogen filling amount was reduced by 15% compared to usual, and the sealing temperature was also reduced by two levels - this "gentle mode" for dealing with fine beans stunned the South African business delegation on the spot.
When walking to the three-dimensional warehouse area, Old Tom suddenly squatted down and touched the ground. This action startled the accompanying sales director, but the old man grinned and said, "I'm looking for coffee powder! When I visited the Korean factory last year, they had leaked powder in every corner of the workshop." Our fully sealed high-end packaging machine production line is making customers proud at this time. From metering to bagging, the whole process is invisible to the sun, and only the aroma of coffee floats in the air. Jenny, the accompanying technician, sniffed hard, and suddenly took out her mobile phone to take a photo of the dust removal system: "Can you sell us two sets of this device? The dust removal equipment in the Cape Town factory is noisier than my vacuum cleaner!"
The highlight was after lunch. Old Tom took out a wrinkled blueprint from his suit pocket: "We need to make this kind of self-supporting bag that can be deformed. It must have a one-way exhaust valve to prevent moisture in the rainy season." The workshop director, Lao Li, glanced at the blueprint, turned around and led them into the flexible production area. Our high-end packaging machine production line is demonstrating special-shaped bags to Southeast Asian customers. The robot arm "clicked" to replace the mold, and in the blink of an eye, the square bag was turned into a gourd shape. The engineer in the South African business delegation who had been silent suddenly said something in Zulu, and the translator said with a smile: "He said this machine is smarter than a chameleon!"
The night before signing the contract, Old Tom insisted on watching the night shift production again. At two o'clock in the morning in the workshop, the high-end packaging machine production line was automatically switched to energy-saving mode. He stared at the energy consumption curve on the big screen for half an hour, then turned to ask our factory director: "For this German servo system, your modification cost is lower than the original factory, right?" Without waiting for an answer, he touched his chin and nodded: "No wonder colleagues in Mumbai say you are the 'surgery experts' in the packaging machine industry."
A small incident happened when seeing off the guests - Old Tom's assistant secretly handed me an envelope, and when I opened it, it turned out to be a hand-drawn workshop layout map, with a blank space saying: "Please quote the cloning plan for this demonstration line." Later I heard that the South African business delegation cut the original German equipment order in half after returning home. Now in their new factory, three high-end packaging machine production lines with "Made in China" are processing specialty coffee beans from the Cape of Good Hope to the Sahara.
Next time you meet a picky overseas merchant, don't panic. Those "skilled" steel partners in our workshop are much better than salesmen. Just like what Old Tom said before he left: "Kimberley's diamonds need to be paired with Cape Town's sunshine, and our coffee beans need to find your packaging machine production line!"
