SOCI 235 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Vertical Integration, Pierre Dupont, Man-Hour
8 Jun 2018
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SOCI 235 – Technology and Society
The moving assembly line and its aftermath – Oct. 13th
Henry Ford
• Apprenticed as a mechanist, went to work in 1891 as an engineer for Edison Illuminating
Company
• Became chief engineer rapidly, developed a spare time interest building horseless
carriages and raced them
• 1903 – moved to the manufacture of automobiles for the market forming the Ford
Motor Company with $28,000 in cash provided by Alexander Y. Malcolmson
• 1906 – dispute oer a firs usiess strateg
o Malcolmson wanted to build high priced 6 cylinder cars; Ford wanted to build a
readable, low priced car
o Malcolmson got bought out
• 1908 – firm brought the Model T to market
o Rugged construction, simple design, and relative ease of repair – could be sold to
those living in rural areas
o Car could survive driving over poor quality roads and could be easily fixed
o Business strategy came with intention of selling the vehicle at a low price, where
lower prices were secured through improvements in product organization
• Initial chassis construction involved:
o Dividing factory floor into about 100 chassis assembly locations
o Groups of workers laid down axels, attached frames, and put on wheels
o Skilled workers moved around the plant to wherever they were needed
• Moving assembly line introduced chassis construction in 1913
o Chassis was moved by an endless chain
o The work was brought to the worker – workers no longer wasted time moving
around the plant
o Parts ere rought to orkers oeors, railas ad grait slides
o Tasks were narrowed down for each worker in the assembly sequence
• Result
o Pre moving assembly line chassis construction requires 12 hours and 30 mins of
paid labour
o 3 months after – fell to 2 hours and 38 minutes
o 6 months after – fell to 1 hour and 35 mins
o Post moving assembly line improvements took # of forms: ex. experiments with
different drive methods (later switched to an
overheard rail), and devices for supplying the
parts
o Resulted in dramatic decline in prices:
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