Mass Production at Highland Park:

1
Mass Production at Highland Park

• The New Technology and Its Social Consequences,
  1900-1917

2
The Background

• Few have not heard of Henry Ford a national and
  indeed an international icon in popular and
  industrial culture.
• Ford
• the arch-type of the rags to riches myth
• the farm boy who through spunk, discipline, and
  hard work moved up the social ladder to become
  skilled mechanic, engineer, and finally
  billionaire industrialist.
• To John D. Rockefeller Ford the Ford Highland
  Park plant- the industrial miracle of the age
• To others the high priest of industrial
  efficiency

3
The Background

• And he resonated in the global popular culture
• In Charlie Chaplins Modern Times the image
  workers condemned to perpetual involuntary
  motions.
• In Aldous Huxleys Brave New World modern times
  began in the year of our Ford
• In Germany Fordismus of the 1920s led to the
  Peoples Car, or Volkswagon, in the 1930s
• In Russia Fordizatsiia paved the way for forced
  and rushed industrialization policies of the 1920s

4
The Background

• The Ford Miracle between 1908 and 1914
• he invested millions in plant and equipment,
• reduced the price of his Model T,
• doubled the wages of labor,
• reduced the hours of labor,
• and he was on the path to becoming the worlds
  first billionaire.
• Ford Motor Companys remarkable growth
• 1903 Ford Motor Company employed 125 workers and
  produced 1,700 autos
• 1908 450 workers 10,600 autos
• 191414,000 workers 248,000 autos
• 1921 32,700 workers 934,000 autos

5
Ford Workforce, c. 1914
6
The Background

• By 1914, he held 48 of the world auto market.
• What was the Ford idea?
• First the standardized product
• Second the Taylorization, or simplification, of
  work and work processes
• Third the adoption of the most advanced machine
  tool technology
• Finally the integration and synchronization of
  all productive processes

7
The Background

• In 1903 the FMC was a most traditional small
  auto assembly shop that used conventional methods
  of production skilled workers built automobiles
  from parts provided by outside suppliers
• Auto production
• Foundry cast metal parts
• Machine shopsfinished the castings
• Then, file and fit assembly of components
• Finally, the assembly of components into the
  finished product the automobile

8
Traditional Auto Production Machine Shop
9
Traditional Auto Production Machine Shop
10
Traditional Auto ProductionComponent Assembly
11
Traditional Auto Production Body Assembly
12
Traditional Auto Production Auto Assembly
13
Traditional Auto Production Auto Assembly
14
The Background

• Initial automobiles a playthings for the wealthy
• Limited production runs skilled workersgeneral
  purpose machines
• Stationary assemblyengine and auto assembly a
  three dimension jigsaw puzzle filing and and
  fitting
• Until the beginnings of mechanized production
  around 1910 traditional skilled craftsmen
  produced automobiles with the aid of less skilled
  and unskilled workers helpers, assistants,
  laborers, truckers, etc.

15
The Background

• Fords chief contribution the concept of a motor
  car for the great multitude the Model T Fordhe
  proclaimed
• I will build a motor car for the great
  multitude. It will be large enough for the
  family, but small enough for the individual to
  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.
• He wanted to make automobiles like matches or
  pins all identical to each other
• Mass consumption forces mass production

16
Evolution to the Model T Ford
17
The Background

• The Model T a product with over 5,000 parts and
  components conceived as simple matches of pins.
• This inexpensive automobileannounced in
  1908proved enormously popular
• The conventional Ford plant strained to keep up
  with popular demand for the Model T
• In 1910, productive operations slowly shifted to
  the new Highland Park plant
• From 1910-1914, incredible experimentation and
  innovation in methods and processes of production

18
The Ford Highland Park Plant
19
The Ford Highland Park Plant
20
The New Technology

• The secret of Fords industrial success the
  rigidly standardized Model T
• The standard design of the product customer
  could have any color so long as it was black a
  logic for simplified production
• With product standardization Ford engineers
  could standardize work and work
  processesTaylorism

21
The New Technology

• In effect, the ideas of Frederick Winslow Taylor
  had saturated the minds of Detroit industrialists
  and engineers
• Taylorism involved the careful analysis of all
  work tasks, the elimination of every needless
  motion, and the minute division and subdivision
  of labortime and motion study
• Next with such simplified and routinized work
  tasks machines could be easily designed to
  perform the simple new work tasks

22
The New Technology

• The shift from general-purpose machines to
  single-purpose ones
• Single purpose machines the transference of
  skill by the machine designer from the operators
  the new machines embodied he complex skills of
  the worker two ways specially designed machines
  or jigs and fixtures
• In 1914 the Highland Park plant had 14,000
  workers and 15,000 machines Ford policy scrap
  old machines ruthlessly ruthlessly in favor of
  better types even if old was one month old

23
Single Purpose Machines
24
The New Technology

• Fords next innovation progressive production
  and assembly the arrangement of men, machines,
  and work tasks in line, one task followed by the
  other
• As H. L. Arnold noted
• the scheme of placing both machine and hand
  work in straight-line sequence of operations so
  that the component in progress will travel the
  shortest road from start to finish, with no
  avoidable handling whatsoever.

25
The New Technology

• Progressive production first came to the Highland
  Park machine shops around 1913
• Then to the assembly operations around 1913 and
  1914
• In the machine shops- the conventional
  arrangement similar machines located together
  parts moved from one are to next
• Progressive production eliminated trucking of
  parts materials handling becomes important
  gravity slides, roll ways, endless chains, and
  conveyor belts

26
Progressive or Sequential Machine Operations at
Highland ParkMovement of Cylinder CastingThru
Shop
27
Progressive Assembly of Magnetos
28
Progressive Assembly of Pistons
29
Chassis Assembly Line
30
The New Technology

• First, line production came to machine shops
• Then, assembly operations around 1913
  experiments in magneto assembly
• Next, other operations
• Finally, the main assembly line
• H. L. Arnold- the highly impressive spectacle
  of the Ford assembly line
• Long lines of slowly moving assemblies in
  progress, busy groups of successive operators,
  the rapid growth of the chassis as component
  after component is added from overhead of
  sources of supply, and finally the instant start
  into self-moving power.

31
A Fully Integrated Production System
32
The New Technology

• At the Highland Park plant, modern mass
  production became a reality in a few brief
  yearsfrom around 1910 to 1914
• Butthe innovations came at incredible social
  coststhe world of work would never be the same
  again
• The social impact of the new industrial
  technology
• The complete transformation of traditional work
  tasks and routines
• The emergence of the deskilled specialist as the
  principal occupational group of the plant
• The development of new forms of control of workers

33
The New Technology

• Transformation of work tasks and routines
• Obviously Ford engineers and Ford workers thought
  differently about the coming of the modern
  factory work
• Said one journalist
• Fifteen thousand men work in gangs on the track
  system. Each gang, and each man on each gang,
  has just one thing to doand do over and over
  again. Its push and bustle and go.
• Work became routine, monotonous, degraded, and
  boring

34
The New Technology

• The social structure of work also changed
  dramatically
• In the 1890sDetroit metal workers structure of
  occupationsc. 2 foremen, 39 skilled mechanics,
  30 semiskilled specialists, 29 unskilled
  laborers similar to Ford structure of
  occupations in 1910
• By 1917 Ford workforce 6.2 foremen, 4.2
  clerks, 3.7 inspectors, 15.6 skilled and
  technical workers, 55.3 unskilled specialists,
  and 14.6 unskilled workers
• The significant change was the increase in
  supervisors and the decrease in worker skills
• A large majority were unskilled specialists.

35
The New Technology

• New forms of control
• Bureaucratic control
• Foremen, straw bosses, clerks, and inspectorsall
  ensure that workers produce at speed, quality and
  quantity desired
• The ratio of foremen to workersincreased from 1
  in 25 to 1 in 15
• Technical control
• Machine paced productionworkers controlled by
  the cycle of the machine
• The sequential arrangement of workprogressive
  production of hand work and use of conveyors

36
Hand Assembly Line for Pistons
Inspector at the End of the Line
37
Chassis Assembly Line
Foreman Oversees Workmen
38
Shortage Chasers
Clerks to Insure Availability of Components
39
Technical Control Line Speed
Charlie Chaplain, Modern Times
40
Barbara Dane, Detroit Medley
A 1930s critique of line productionMine Eyes
have seen the glory of the making of the Ford
41
The Social Consequences

• Productivity fell far below expectations
• Some individual shops and departments- up 1,000
• In reality, only about 60 increase in Model T
  production
• Even Taylorwork reorganization alone without
  line techniquespromised 200-400
• Serious problems with the totally integrated and
  synchronized production system
• Problems rooted in worker culture

42
The Social Consequences

• Immigrant cultureunskilled workattracted a
  largely immigrant workforcemainly from
  pre-industrial Southern and Eastern Europe
• Absence of time and work discipline which
  affected output
• Alsoworking-class culturereactions to boring,
  repetitive, and degraded work
• Absenteeismaveraged 10 over the week14,000
  workers meant a reserve of 1,400 extra men to
  fill in for absentees
• Turnover, or quit ratea phenomenal 370 per
  yearneed to hire 52,000 to maintain existing
  workforce

43
Ford Immigrant Workers
44
The Social Consequences

• Worker and union culturesoldiering and output
  restrictionnot working with as much effort as
  possible or holding back production
• Unionizationthreats of worker organization
  ranging from radical IWW to the more staid AFL
  around 1913
• As line production became a reality, Ford
  officials had a complex and multidimensional
  labor problem
• In 1913, a series of reforms that did not solve
  the problems
• Then Ford astounded the world with the
  announcement of the famous Five Dollar Day

45
The Social Consequences

• The Five Dollar Daynot a simple wage increase,
  but a sophisticated profit-sharing schemedoubled
  the average pay received by unskilled workers
• Main target- unproductive immigrant and
  working-class cultures
• Five Dollar Daydivided into roughly equal
  partswages and profits
• Wages for work in the shops
• Profits for right living
• Right livingprogressive idea that a good home
  environment produced good people or workers

46
Workers at Highland Park for Five Dollar Jobs
47
The Social Consequences

• Ford Sociological Departmenta staff of 100
  investigators to go into homes to determine
  whether or not workers lived right
• Approval meant the Five Dollar Day
• Non-approval mean monitoring to assure changed
  attitudes and valuesif no change, dismissals
• Ford English Schoola combination language and
  cultural skills
• All in all, the standardization of the product
  moves to the standardization of the producers.

48
Ford English School Class, c. 1914
49
Ford English School Graduation, c. 1914
50
Ford English School Diploma
51
The Social Consequences

• Ultimatelyin the short run the profit-sharing
  scheme succeeded
• absenteeism and turnover declined
• production increased
• and the auto industry avoided unionism
• It lasted through the war years, when inflation
  eroded the incentive of the Five Dollar Day
• In the 1920s, a shift to the brutal Bennett
  regime which emphasized the repression of
  dissident and underperforming workers
• In the end, the auto industry became a high wage
  seasonal industry and workers traded the rotten
  work for higher wages