Contribution of Henry Ford

Inventor of the Moving Assembly Line

Contrary to popular belief, Henry Ford did not invent the automobile. While his Ford Motor
Company did produce the vehicle that initiated a new era in personal transportation (the Model T),
the invention of the first automobile is generally credited to Karl Benz of Germany. In fact, Henry
Ford's most important contribution was actually the invention of the moving assembly line.
Prior to Ford's invention, factory employees would work in groups to build one car at a time. By
installing a moving assembly line in his factory, workers instead began to build cars one piece at a
time with each individual responsible for a specific job. This division of labor allowed cars to be
produced both more quickly and efficiently. With the addition of the world's first automatic
conveyor belt, Henry Ford's factory in Michigan was soon producing a car every 93 minutes.
Ford's assembly line invention accelerated the American Industrial Revolution, and factories
continue to employee the concept to this day. Among Henry Ford's other notable accomplishments
was increasing the minimum wage for his workers from $2.34-a-day to $5-a-day, while cutting shift
lengths from 9 hours to 8 hours. This wage increase was designed to make automobiles affordable
and accessible to the common man a dream we now see realized on the roadways everyday.

Concept of Assembly Line

Assembly lines are designed for the sequential organization of workers, tools or machines, and
parts. The motion of workers is minimized to the extent possible. All parts or assemblies are
handled either by conveyors or motorized vehicles such as fork lifts, or gravity, with no manual
trucking. Heavy lifting is done by machines such as overhead cranes or fork lifts. Each worker
typically performs one simple operation.
According to Henry Ford:
The principles of assembly are these:
(1) Place the tools and the men in the sequence of the operation so that each
component part shall travel the least possible distance while in the process of
finishing.
(2) Use work slides or some other form of carrier so that when a workman
completes his operation, he drops the part always in the same placewhich place
must always be the most convenient place to his handand if possible have
gravity carry the part to the next workman for his own.
(3) Use sliding assembling lines by which the parts to be assembled are delivered
at convenient distances.

Assembly Line Example:Consider the assembly of a car: assume that certain steps in the assembly line are to install the
engine, install the hood, and install the wheels (in that order, with arbitrary interstitial steps); only
one of these steps can be done at a time. In traditional production, only one car would be assembled

at a time. If engine installation takes 20 minutes, hood installation takes five minutes, and wheels
installation takes 10 minutes, then a car can be produced every 35 minutes.
In an assembly line, car assembly is split between several stations, all working simultaneously.
When one station is finished with a car, it passes it on to the next. By having three stations, a total
of three different cars can be operated on at the same time, each one at a different stage of its
assembly.
After finishing its work on the first car, the engine installation crew can begin working on the
second car. While the engine installation crew works on the second car, the first car can be moved to
the hood station and fitted with a hood, then to the wheels station and be fitted with wheels. After
the engine has been installed on the second car, the second car moves to the hood assembly. At the
same time, the third car moves to the engine assembly. When the third cars engine has been
mounted, it then can be moved to the hood station; meanwhile, subsequent cars (if any) can be
moved to the engine installation station.
Assuming no loss of time when moving a car from one station to another, the longest stage on the
assembly line determines the throughput (20 minutes for the engine installation) so a car can be
produced every 20 minutes, once the first car taking 35 minutes has been produced.