World Trade - March 2009 - (Page 50) Great Moments IN WORLD TRADE Mass Producing Modernity BY JEREMY N. SMITH I n 1903, the Ford Motor Company introduced its first car, the Model A, of which approximately two were made a day, each by a team of three men, working with other company’s components. By 1906, the company was onto Model N and Ford was the best-selling brand in America. Two years later, Henry Ford announced the Model T, “a simple, sturdy car, offering no factory options—not even a choice of color,” as one historian summarizes. Purchase price: $825.00. First-year sales exceeded 10,000. Ford, however, was unsatisfied. If the Model T were somehow less expensive, sales could rise ten-fold. “I will build a car for the great multitude,” Ford had announced. “It will be large enough for the family, but small enough for the individual to run and care for. It will be constructed of the best materials, by the best men to be hired, after the simplest designs that modern engineering can devise. But it will be low in price so that no man making a good salary will Ford Motor Company be unable to own one.” For five years, Ford tinkered relentlessly with his assembly process. First mass-produced interchangeable parts replaced custom components, thus “any valve would fit any engine, any steering wheel would fit any chassis.” Next assembly was divided into distinct steps—84 in all—only one of which would be the domain of each worker. Finally, in a setup executives first observed in Chicago meatpacking “disassembly line,” workers were arranged in order of operation and trained to stay in one place while the work moved to them via conveyor belt. “As may be imagined, the job of putting the car together was a simpler one than handling the materials that had to be brought to it,” recalled early Ford manager Charles Sorensen. “The idea occurred to me that assembly would be easier, simpler, and faster if we moved the chassis along, beginning at one end of the plant with a frame and adding the axles and the wheels; then moving it past the stockroom, instead of moving the stockroom to the chassis.” In 1913 ran the world’s first moving assembly line for mass production. As manufacturing time halved from twelve and a half to fewer than six hours, Model T prices fell to $575. Total sales eventually reached 15 million. By 1914, 48 of every 100 automobiles sold in America was a Ford. Today the moving assembly line is an iconic symbol of industrial modernity. This winter, for example, newscasts led Christmas sales stories with images of Microsoft’s Xbox 360s video game systems turning from green circuit boards to gleaming white boxes as they sped across an Asian factory floor. To reduce turnover from his labor force, Ford doubled workers’ minimum wage—from $2.83 for a 9-hour day to $5.00 for an 8-hour day. Quite a contrast to contemporary automakers, led by the last half-century of Japanese innovation, who are as likely to turn to robots. In 2007, lean manufacturing model Toyota surpassed Ford to become the second-ranked automaker in U.S. sales after General Motors. That same year the company opened a radically reduced size assembly line in its largest production plant in Toyota City, Japan. “As these new lines are much shorter than the conventional production lines, they will use less space. That means a decrease in electricity usage though reduced lighting, air conditioning, heating and energy used, resulting in lower CO2 emissions,” assistant manager Paul Nolasco told Australia’s Manufacturers’ Monthly. Nolasco estimates required energy consumption for manufacturing has dropped by one half. Meanwhile, high-speed conveyor robots help speed up such production tasks as stamping, welding, painting, and final assembly as much as 70 percent. “When both of our two new lines are installed, the Takaoka Plant will produce 500,000 vehicles per year, from only the two lines,” Nolasco said. “That is an increase of 30,000 vehicles produced from each of the two new shorter and more efficient lines.” Are U.S. manufacturers taking notes? Henry Ford would hope so. “The competitor to be feared is one who never bothers about you at all,” he said, “but goes on making his own business better all the time.” WT 50 WORLD TRADE MARCH 2009
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