Manufacturing Pioneers

Much of the credit for bringing these early concepts together in a coherent form, and creating the modern, integrated, mass production operation, belongs to the U.S. industrialist Henry Ford and his colleagues at the Ford Motor Company, where in 1913 a moving-belt conveyor was used in the assembly of flywheel magnetos. With it assembly time was cut from 18 minutes per magneto to five minutes. The approach was then applied to automobile body and motor assembly. The design of these production lines was highly analytical and sought the optimum division of tasks among work stations, optimum line speed, optimum work height, and careful synchronization of simultaneous operations.

The success of Ford's operation led to the adoption of mass production principles by industry in the United States and Europe. The methods made major contributions to the large growth in manufacturing productivity that has characterized the 20th century and produced phenomenal increases in material wealth and improvements in living standards in the industrialized countries.