This idea, which seemed simple on its surface but was genius in its effect, was able to reduce the time required to assemble a complete car from twelve hours to only approximately two and a half hours. It was not just a marginal improvement, but rather an unprecedented giant leap that sparked a new industrial revolution that changed the face of the contemporary world.

On December 1, 1913, at the Ford Motor Company plant in Highland Park, Michigan, the idea turned into reality. There, the company led by Henry Ford launched the first moving assembly line in history. On that day, a car frame was lowered onto a slowly crawling conveyor belt, starting at a speed of 1.8 meters per minute, and began moving in front of rows of waiting workers. The worker no longer needs to move from his place carrying his tools and spare parts, but rather the car comes to him.

140 workers, each in his position, installed specific parts on the moving structure, as if they were an orchestra playing a harmonious piece of music. The results were amazing and immediate. While in 1912 the company produced approximately 82,388 Model T cars at a cost of $600 per car, this number jumped after the assembly line was implemented in 1916 to 585,388 cars, while the price fell to only $360, thus shattering all expectations.

To understand the magnitude of this achievement, we must go back to what was the case before 1913. Cars were manufactured according to the “static assembly” method, where one car remained in one workstation for several days, while a group of highly skilled workers assembled all its parts, starting with the engine and ending with the wheels. This method was laborious, slow, labor-intensive and expensive, as it took approximately 12.5 hours to assemble the body of a single Model T car. This was the norm, until Henry Ford and his revolutionary regime had their say.

The assembly line was not just a moving belt, but rather an integrated philosophy to re-engineer the entire production process. Its principle was based on dividing the process of assembling a complex product such as a car into a series of hundreds of very simple and repetitive operations. A worker no longer needs years of experience to know how to assemble a complete car. Rather, all he has to do is master one simple task, such as tightening three bolts, installing one wheel, or installing brakes.

These tasks were distributed in precise sequence along the line, so that the structure passed in front of each worker as he performed his specific job at the appointed time. The line’s design also standardized the parts and made them completely interchangeable, meaning that any part from any production batch would fit any car without the need for modification or hardening, which was revolutionary in itself.

The innovation did not stop at moving the structure, but rather extended to providing the worker with everything he needed. Auxiliary conveyors have been added to deliver parts and components directly to each worker’s workstation at the appropriate time, eliminating the need for him to go back and forth to collect them, saving precious seconds that accumulate to make a huge difference. The fixed speed of the conveyor belt imposed a strict and continuous rhythm of production, thus determining the overall pace of work. The speed of the conveyor is what determines the speed of the final output.

The fruits were amazing on every level. In addition to the astronomical reduction in assembly time, production costs fell sharply. Massive productivity, reduced assembly time, and the replacement of “expensive” labor with less expensive labor to perform simplified tasks have led to a dramatic reduction in the cost per car. This decline enabled Ford to insanely reduce the price of the Model T, transforming it from a luxury item for the wealthy only into a means of transportation within the reach of the working class itself, which expanded the market in an unprecedented way.

The assembly line was not the only innovation that Ford introduced. The man was a visionary in every sense of the word. In addition to the moving line, he developed a manual planetary gearbox for his cars, which consisted of several sub-gears rotating around a central gear. The Model T itself, launched in 1908, was a masterpiece of design and simplicity, and became the first mass-produced car in history. Ford did not neglect the logistical details, as he was the first to use overhead conveyor systems with hooks and chains to move heavy parts easily through the factory.

But perhaps what most astonished the world was not a technical innovation, but rather a bold social decision. In 1914, in an unprecedented move, Henry Ford introduced the five-day workweek, raising the minimum wage for his workers to five dollars a day, a large sum in those days.

Not only was this an act of charity, it was a smart strategy. Ford wanted to create customers among his workers. By raising their wages, he would enable them to improve their standard of living and even buy the product they made with their own hands. This step not only raised workers’ morale and loyalty, but also directly contributed to creating a mass consumer market and boosted the economy. With this comprehensive vision, Henry Ford not only changed the way cars were made, but he also changed the concept of work, wages, and production in the entire world, establishing the era of mass production in which we still do not live today.

Source: RT

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