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Mass Production - The Myth of Henry Ford

 


Everybody knows that mass production started with Henry Ford and his model T assembly line in 1913. Or did it? Whilst is is true that he is responsible for the first moving chassis production line, did you realise that the ideas actually came from the food industry?  Which by that time had used the assembly line principle for well over a hundred years.  The first product to be made on the assembly line principle was hardtack, otherwise known as ship’s biscuit.

In the late 1700’s at the royal dockyards at Portsmouth an assembly line of bakery staff made 70 four-ounce biscuits per minute.  The varying fortunes of war also made them one of the earliest exponents of contract labour, employing a core work force which was supplemented by contractors.  This early assembly line was a manual process but organised to ensure that workmen’s movements were “economised to the utmost”. By 1833 a steam powered assembly line which was almost entirely automated enabled the yard to make around 100,000 tons of biscuit a year and reduce the costs from almost £14,000  to under £4,000 per year, a cost saving of 66% .  

Throughout the eighteenth century production methods improved. Bodmer developed the endless belt to fuel furnaces. Conveyors speeded up the construction of the Suez canal.  By the turn of the  twentieth century innovative production techniques were everywhere, even Wolverhampton! Here Henry Ford was nearly beaten to mass production; by 1913 Wolverhampton’s Sunbeam Motor company was mechanically moving the chassis to the fitters, they just hadn’t quite developed the  assembly line. Improved production and reduced costs have been driving the manufacturing sector ever since.

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