Sunday, October 6, 2013

A century ago, Ford's assembly line changed society

Detroit (AFP) - It began on October 7, 1913 when engineers constructed a crude system using a rope and winch to pull a Ford Model T past 140 workers in a sprawling new factory dubbed the Crystal Palace.
Henry Ford launched the modern assembly line in a suburb of Detroit a century ago -- and helped spark a radical transformation of both manufacturing and society.
By drastically reducing the cost of production with standardized parts and more efficient assembly, Ford was able to bring the luxury, convenience and freedom of the automobile to the masses.
Other industries soon adopted the innovation and today, everything from cereal to caskets is made on assembly lines.
"It had a huge, huge impact," said Stephen Burnett, a professor with Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management.
Standardization led to lower costs, higher quality and more reliable products.
Most critically, the assembly line cut the amount of time it took to assemble a Model T from 12.5 hours to just 93 minutes.
"Any time you increase the productivity of labor, tremendously valuable things can happen to the economy," Burnett told AFP.
Higher productivity means more profit, some of which is often returned to workers through higher wages. Workers then have more money to buy products, creating what economists call a virtuous cycle of growth.
The assembly line also changed the way people worked and lived, accelerating the shift from rural areas to cities, and increasing the number of people doing repetitive, low-skilled jobs.
From 100 to 1,000 Model Ts a day
While piece work was a time-honored tradition and the moving assembly line had already transformed the meatpacking industry in Chicago and Cincinnati, it was Ford who found a way to make it work for complex

Pradeep Kumar Shukla

PGDM 1 Year

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