The actual tour lasted only four to five hours, with the rest of the time spent waiting for the manufacturing process. For instance, a high-temperature smelting furnace takes over an hour to reach a 'super-high temperature' state, due to relatively low demand, and is only used once a week. The rest of the time, it simply needs to maintain a high temperature. The 'super-high temperature' state could not be activated especially for the expert group's visit; it had to remain in its normal production state. Therefore, they had to wait.
Of the four people in the 'expert group', this was the first time Zhao Yi and Shen Binghe had visited the steel plant.
Zhang Hongtao had been to the steel factory a few times, but he had little experience and lacked a depth of understanding of actual production.