scholarly journals Analysis of Henry Ford’s contribution to production and management

Pomorstvo ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-45
Author(s):  
Nikola Tomac ◽  
Radoslav Radonja ◽  
Jasminka Bonato
Keyword(s):  
Vertical Integration ◽  
Mass Customization ◽  
Mass Production ◽  
Assembly Line ◽  
Ford Motor Company ◽  
Just In Time ◽  
Time Production ◽  
The World ◽  
Henry Ford ◽  
Mode Of Production

Henry Ford is widely known as the car constructor, the founder of the Ford Motor Company, the pioneer of mass production and the inventor of the moving assembly line, which many consider as the world’s greatest contribution to manufacturing. In 1908, Ford started production of the Ford Model T, which has become one of the most successful automobile in automotive history. But his contribution far surpasses these excellent accomplishments. What are not well known are Ford’s contributions to the just-in-time production, product platforming, mass customization, vertical integration, designs for maintainability, ergonomic considerations, employee management and other features of the manufacture. The Ford’s production system has become the characteristic American mode of production widespread all over the world.

Henry Ford and the Model T: Lessons for Product Platforming and Mass Customization

2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fabrice Alizon ◽  
Steven B. Shooter ◽  
Timothy W. Simpson
Keyword(s):  
Mass Customization ◽  
Mass Production ◽  
Economies Of Scale ◽  
Production Systems ◽  
Product Line ◽  
Innovative Product ◽  
The Past ◽  
Henry Ford ◽  
Current Practices

Everyone knows Henry Ford’s famous maxim: “You can have any color car you want so long as it’s black”. While he is recognized as the father of mass production, his contributions extend well beyond that, offering valuable lessons for product platforming and mass customization. While Ford’s pioneering production systems are widely known and studied, few realize that Ford’s Model T could be viewed as one of the greatest platforms ever created, enabling his workers to customize this model for a variety of different markets. In this paper, we study Ford’s Model T in depth and describe insights into Ford’s vision and his car: how the platform was built, how it was leveraged, and how the platform was maintained dynamically and with continuous improvements to maximize learning and economies of scale. Finally, we compare Ford’s approach to more current approaches to learn from his innovative product line. In some aspects this old car still runs faster than us, and we can learn valuable lessons from the past to avoid future mistakes and improve current practices.

Introduction

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Stefan J. Link
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Mass Production ◽  
The United States ◽  
Assembly Lines ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Third Way ◽  
The Great Depression ◽  
The World ◽  
Henry Ford

This introductory chapter provides an overview of Fordism. Fordism, in its most common usage, was a term that first originated in the 1970s and then boomed in the 1980s, when social scientists sought ways to theorize the structural crises of the industrialized West. Henry Ford in fact never used the term — his global admirers created it. Fordism enjoys a second popular usage: as a shorthand for a distinctively American modernity that is said to have spread across the world in the twentieth century, in a process that historians of Europe have called “Americanization.” Finally, Fordism is used in a third way that focuses more narrowly on what goes on inside firms and on shop floors. To labor historians, Fordism means the shop regime associated with mass production: a focus on unskilled laborers working monotonous tasks on assembly lines. The chapter then details how the spread of Fordism during the interwar years arose from an antagonistic development competition that was initially triggered by the rise of the United States and then accelerated by the Great Depression. It looks at how Detroit became the destination of engineering delegations bent on wholesale technology transfer.

The Color Line and the Assembly Line

2018 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Elizabeth D. Esch
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Assembly Line ◽  
Ford Motor Company ◽  
Color Line ◽  
Du Bois ◽  
Henry Ford ◽  
Line P

IN 1903 HENRY FORD INCORPORATED the Ford Motor Company. That same year the sociologist, historian, and activist W. E. B. Du Bois published this remarkably prescient claim: “The problem of the 20th century is the problem of the color line—the relation of the darker to the lighter races in Asia and Africa, in America and in the islands of the sea.”...

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