Industrial Revolution (1800’s-1940’s)
44 The Assembly Line
Katy Boozer and Graham Ruff
Introduction
Imagine if automobiles were only owned by high class members of society, extremely highly-priced, and valued by only a small percentage of American society. This is what life was like the first few years of the 1900s. However, when 1913 rolled around, Henry Ford decided he was going to change the industry. Ford declared, “When I’m through, about everyone will have one” (“Ford’s Assembly Line Starts Rolling“, 2009). By December, the first automobile assembly line was implemented at the Ford Motor Company of Highland Park, Illinois (Figure 1). The assembly line was a pivotal invention of the Industrial Revolution that exponentially developed the automobile industry starting in the early 1900’s with its impact still present today. The assembly line opened the door for more technology, evolved over time to improve efficiency and positively affected society. The technological interact with human being and help them to understand everything more clearer with a little guide, with technological people do everything in a better way with a better understanding and comfort.
EVOLUTION OF FORD’S MODEL-T
The assembly line was a new technological idea that opened up the door for future technology by vastly cutting down the production time of automobiles in the early 1900’s. Before the creation of the line, Ford’s factories ran in a simple, base-level way. According to a History.com article titled, “Ford’s Assembly Line Starts Rolling,” factory workers were stationed throughout the factory assembling parts spread out on the floor. As the Model N, the initial version of the Model T, was assembled, it was pushed down the line as workers added on their assembled parts along the way (2009). Shortly thereafter, Ford’s methods developed slightly when the assembly of the Model T included 84 detailed steps. As shown in Figure 2, workers were explicitly trained on their specific step (“Ford’s Assembly Line Starts Rolling“, 2009). After many years of attempting to further develop his automobile production, Ford’s goal was to create a method of production that cut down both the cost and production time of the Model-T automobile (Wilson, 2013). Ford also intended to lower the price of his automobile for it to be available to a larger majority of society, rather than solely the high class. With many goals in mind, he discovered the assembly line: a series of workers and machinery in a formative order that assembled automobile parts in an extremely timely, effective manner. The implementation of the assembly line decreased the time it took to produce the Model-T from over 12 hours to only two and a half hours (“Ford’s Assembly Line Starts Rolling“, 2009). However, when implementing machinery to cut production time, this led to a vast decrease in the number of needed factory workers. “I am proud he was able to bring the freedom of mobility to millions by making cars affordable t