Henry Ford Quotes
The man who places a part does not fasten it. The man who puts in the bold does not out on the nut. The man who puts on the nut does not tighten it. Every piece of work in the shop moves. It may move on hooks, on overhead chains …. It may travel on a moving platform or go by gravity.
Ford’s associate Henry Sorenson also was deeply involved with developing the concept of an assembly line. History has tended to give the credit to Ford as he was the boss. However, it is doubtful that either man thought of the concept independently by mutually and collegially developed and implemented the idea.
Henry Ford, 1863-1947, Industrialist & Philanthropist, Unsuccessful Republican Michigan U. S. Senatorial Candidate [1918], Description of the Assembly Line, My Life and Work
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Sorensen and one of the foremen worked out the idea for the assembly line on one of their “days off.” The Model T car was the first item that was made using an assembly line where the work moved to the workers rather than the workers to the work.
Ford, an inveterate racist and anti-Semitic in his old age was very liberal when he first started and accomplished so much. He not only hired foreigners, but also some men of his initial workforce were handicapped. He was proud of the fact that jobs could be created on his concept of an assembly line that was so specialized that handicapped people could be productive workers as they did not have to do everything in the manufacturing process. Since the assembly line did the moving, men who had trouble walking could sit and be very productive at some tasks. Further, Ford did not try and pay his assembly line workers less than the going wage because their skills could be much narrower. He actually doubled the salaries (see {642361}) and picked men who were not wed to the older, traditional way of manufacturing things. The productivity came from the engineering of the cars and the assembly line, not be cutting wages, a practice that he did not continue as he grew older and tried to make his money the traditional way of exploiting the workers more. When the other auto companies had recognized the union, the elder Ford would not.
Henry Ford was an American industrialist, business magnate, anti-Semite, and founder of the Ford Motor Company and chief developer of the assembly line technique of mass production. By creating the first automobile that middle-class Americans could afford, he converted the automobile from an expensive curiosity into an accessible conveyance that profoundly impacted the landscape of the 20th century.
