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Henry Ford Assembly Line

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Henry Ford’s Assembly Line:
More than Just Changes to Automobile Production In the late 1800’s and early 1900’s the automobile was considered an expensive, custom made, consumer product that only the wealthy could afford to dazzle themselves with. In fact, in 1895 there was a report of only 300 cars in the United States, but that number grew dramatically in the years to come to nearly 1.7 million by 1914 (Car History, n.d.). This increase was due in part by two major shifts in the American society; the new consumer economy and the ideas that every family in America should be able to afford an automobile. Henry Ford was a large contributor to this massive increase in the United States and would make changes to the automobile industry that …show more content…

The Model T Ford was known in every household as the “affordable auto” and Henry Ford set out on a dream to make the Model T a item in every driveway across America and be able to sell them by the multitude (Goss, 2014). However, this dream was not an easy feat for those who wanted the Model T. Henry Ford had to figure out a way to get the automobile to a more affordable and reasonable price that all Americans could handle. With the cost of a Model T in the early 1900’s being $850, approximately $21,000 in today’s market, Henry Ford had to figure out more ways to make the delectable vehicle even more cheaper (Goss, 2014). When Ford first made the Model T in 1908, he had the concept of a cheap car that was attainable to everyone with a very basic, sturdy structure with no additional options from the factory or even the choice of color (Science Odyssey, 1998). After still not being able to fit the cheaper bill that was needed, even after stripping the model to its basic bones, Henry Ford knew that he must find other ways to cut the cost of the Model T to make it more …show more content…

Ford hired Fredrick Taylor, a motion study expert, to evaluate and refine the efficiency of his factories after years of trying to find ways himself (History.com, 2009). Taylor took what he saw in the factories to make a more efficient workforce while Henry Ford developed tools and equipment to help with a better flow of the workforce. Together, they realized four distinct things from other smaller businesses that they wanted to immolate and bring to the big stage. These four principles were the use of interchangeable parts, division of labor, continuous flow, and reduced wasted effort (Science Odyssey, 1998). With these four principles in mind and the dream to produce a more cost efficient vehicle, Henry Ford and Fredrick Taylor created the first large scale assembly line in 1913 (Goss, 2014). This assembly line was able to transfer the time it took to build a single Model T from twelve hours to a mere two hours and thirty minutes (History.com, 2009). With its eighty-four distinct steps in the flow of the assembly line, a division of labor was created where a worker could be trained to do one specific task making him more efficient at that task and able to do a much better job (History.com, 2009). Secondly, having interchangeable parts that would could be used between any model of Ford allowed Henry to focus on machinery that would produce these

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