China Connection Part 3; The Hard Work

Simon was a great master of resources finding.        Although the licensing agreement was signed in Feb. 1986, the real work of helping Chinese to build their first PS plate manufacturing plant had just began.     Simon assembled talents from the entire company and some.      1) Conception/ early stage...Jen-Chi Huang, K.S., Bill Saltzman, Hank Mercaldo, Bill Rowe...  2) Negotiation & Contracts... Jen-Chi Huang and Bill  Saltzman   3) Technolgy transfer/Factory design&Build....Jen-Chi Huang, Pylemon Yamin, John Loftus, Delos.Bown and entire QC& R&D team   4) Training/Startup  Delos Bown, Pylemon Yamin, John Loftus,  Erich van Spanje, Jen-Chi Huang and  entire PC technical teams 5) Expansion Phase2 (C-line,F-line, D-line)...and Phase 3 Jumbo line ... Bill Saltzman, Roman Mryglocki, Jen-Chi Huang,  Jenneifer Lin, Sid Fowlds, Tore Harms.    In addition Mr. Tanimoto of DIC and Mr. Mori of Mori engineering were drafted.   It was becoming fashionable then to employ consultants to support setting up new plant.        But the Chinese had limited fund for the plant so that Simon had to rely on his experience and combined wisdom of the team to find best way to move the project from within.    Sinon's approach turned out to be very appropriate for the 2FF group as they were able to develop their own  internal engineering expertise rather than relying on turn key components consultants favored.       Under Simon's tutelage 2FF production line came on stream, under budget and on time.               2FF continued to expand their production line through purchasing surplus equipments from Polychrome as they became available and then designed their own high speed lines using accumulated internal expertise.         During my recent trip to 2FF I saw a truly world class high speed line incorporating numbers of good design practice such as the straight web path and the entirely separate subsystems to allow uncluttered production line.   
Early days of activity is described by Dr. Bown in the '86 Polyworld HERE.