The General Motor 's President

“With one workman doing a complete job he could turn out from thirty-five to forty pieces in a nine-hour day, or about twenty minutes to an assembly. What he did alone was then spread into twenty-nine operations; that cut down the assembly time to thirteen minutes” (Ford, 45). Ford had nearly cut the production time of one Ford Model T in half, allowing for more automobiles to be produced in a day. The Ford Motor Company was able to produce 150 Ford Model Ts every day and eventually reached nearly 10,000 Model Ts a day by 1925 (Sandler, 21). Each worker would contribute his skill at assembling a single part of the Model T, and once he completed his task he would pass the Model T on to the next worker in line along the assembly line, similar to the meat production factory in which Ford envisioned his idea. His idea soon caught on and became an idealistic way to mass produce products in America which soon caught on to other industries and continued to inspire the ways Americans would produce goods even to this day.

From the beginning of times, most markets and products have been targeted to the bourgeoisie and/or anyone who could easily afford these products. But in the early 1900’s, an individual named Henry Ford, decided to change this idea and dared society to work for the success of the proletariat and the lowering of costs. Henry Ford, along with other individuals, created the highly praised “moving assembly line” and started the mind change in the targeting of markets. The assembly line was a way in building a final product using various people that would build particular parts, and then would assemble them together as a whole; this was a success and revolutionized the world of

This was achieved via the creation of “quality circles,” where individual workers could contribute suggestions to improve the production process, and increasing job security (and consequently worker loyalty) through lifetime employment and seniority-based pay. (Womack 54-56). After the Japanese auto industry became increasingly competitive with its American counterpart, auto companies like GM decided to adopt most, if not all practices included in “lean manufacturing.” This manifested in the creation of the NUMMI plant, which was a joint effort between GM and Toyota, and the development of Saturn, a GM subsidiary that exclusively used the practices of “lean production.” At these factories, the adoption of “lean production” generally held the same benefits for American workers as it did with Japanese workers. What proves ironic in the case of the NUMMI and Saturn plant, is the fact that the UAW and GM negotiated the terms of employment prior the factories opening. (Milkman 139) Considering that these plants generally provided the employee with a positive working experience, emphasized the role of the individual in the “team concept,” and consequently removed the need for collective bargaining, the collaborative effort between the UAW and GM in developing these plants ultimately impeded the influence that the UAW had. In a society that perceived unions as corrupt and untrustworthy, and not necessarily in the interests of workers,

Mass production was used for making a large amount of cars, and many more things. Henry Ford used this method so he could make more and more cars faster and easier. The assembly line worked by men putting parts on the car as

1) Compare Frederick Taylor’s mass production and Eric Trist’s socio-technical team-based production approaches to the design of work systems.

Throughout the 1920’s, while the economy was stable, there was quite a large unemployment rate. This allowed many individuals to come up with ways to provide for more jobs and make jobs more cost effective. One method of this was popularized by Henry Ford known as “mass production”. This being created in the 1910’s was brought to its best by henry ford creating more, easier, better-paying jobs for anyone. Mass Production techniques in industries and factories allowed larger numbers of products to be created more easily with less effort, better wages for employees, and cheaper retail costs. The most popular method of mass production was the efficient use of the Assembly Line, as used by Henry Ford and the production of the Model T automobile.

Mass production is an assembly line where multiple people work on a singular object in a straight moving line. This idea was introduced in 1913 and was popularised in the 1920's helping manufacturing, productions, becoming cheaper and more efficient worldwide for many people to afford, from prices of $950 to $550.

Henry Ford, starting about 1910, Ford and his right-hand-man, Charles E. Sorensen, fashioned the first comprehensive Manufacturing Strategy. They took all the elements of a manufacturing system (such as people, machines, tooling, and products) and arranged them in a continuous system for manufacturing the Model T automobile. He quickly became one of the world's richest men. Ford is considered by many to be the first practitioner of Lean Manufacturing. Ford's success inspired many others to copy his methods. Ford methods were deciding factors in the Allied victory of World War II (Strategosinc, 2016).

In 1982, General Motors closed “The Worst Plant in the World” in Fremont, California. In 1984, General Motors and Toyota opened up a joint venture operation in the same plant General Motors had closed just two years prior. The joint venture was called New United Motor Manufacturing Inc. (NUMMI). The concepts used for this new venture are those of Frederick Winslow Taylor and his time-and-motion regimentation. NUMMI’s newly implemented Taylorist procedures appear to encourage along with satisfaction and increased worker motivation.

These theories were proven relevant by their popularity (Brooks, 20) “Taylor’s thinking preceded the widespread adoption of mass production techniques, possibly best demonstrated by the early 1920’s motor manufacturers, most significantly Henry Ford in the USA.” Production lines were sequential and followed a strict rule of the “one best way” which may be because the new industry and workers did not have a large amount of knowledge or expertise on how their jobs should be done.

Initially at Ford motors, production used to take place by keeping the vehicle at one position and making the workers move in and about gathering the several parts together. This method unfortunately was a very tedious and time-consuming process. In view of this fact, Henry Ford appointed Taylor to monitor the operations taking place. Ford applied the scientific management

The Ford Motor Company (FMC) was founded in Detroit in 1903 and began shortly thereafter exporting cars to European branches. Cross-border assembly started in Canada in 1904 and was later implemented in the European markets. The first European plant was established in 1911 in England, and this was followed with other lower volume assembly plants across the European continent. All the plants and branches assembled and sold the Model T, using American methods and practices. This proved to be a success in the beginning, but in the long run, “(…) this proved a costly and unsuccessful strategy in Europe’s diverse markets” (Bonin et al., p. 15). By the late 1920s most of its European subsidiaries were struggling and Ford had to change his

This synthesised, scientifically managed workflow was meant to improve labour productivity and economic efficiency. And thirdly, rather than having machinery at the centre of the factory and workers moving to and from the product, assembly lines were used. This meant that the workers remained stationary and the product simply flowed past them (Murray, 1989). They were essentially treated as robots and dictated by machines; operating to the duplicated, repetitive tasks daily and not given the opportunity to express potential for advancement or improvement.

General Motors has always pioneered and innovated whereas its competitors have been more complacent and rested on their laurels. It is because of this that General Motors holds so much of the global auto market and has created so many remarkable and recognisable car brands. Mary Barra, the current CEO of the company, is another in a long line of pioneers and currently has major cultural reforms within the company as a goal.

At the turn of the XIX and XX centuries production nature has changed significantly.First of all, sharply increased its scale and concentration. There were giant enterprises, which employed thousands, and sometimes tens of thousands of workers and engineers used expensive equipment, complicated processes based on the latest achievements of scientific thought.