His "Model T", the legendary "tin Lizzie", should be available to everyone, Henry Ford decided in 1913 - and was the first to introduce conveyor production at his plant, which made it possible to manufacture cars according to reasonable price... The conveyor has become a real revolution in the industry.
Walking belt
The appearance of the conveyor belt marked the end of the industrialization process that began in the 1st to the 18th century. Even then, [the division of labor in industrial production began, but only the conveyor belt made it possible to bring it to its logical end. A significant step in this direction was already the rationalization ideas of Winslow Taylor in 1880, but the moving conveyor belt, which set the pace, became an outlet to new level... The consequences for workers - monotony, weariness, growing alienation from the manufactured product - were not immediately realized. Ford relied on Taylor's ideas, but his focus was on the capabilities of the machine, not the person.
But he reduced the working day to 8 hours, organizing production in 3 shifts, began to pay workers twice as much, introduced a five-day week with two days off and a pension in the event of a work injury.
Modernity
In the 1920s. conveyor production has become widespread. A wave of rationalization has swept over many areas of industry. Since the 1970s. the monotony of the mechanical conveyor has been replaced by a much more flexible computer technology... The conveyor remains important part of industrial production, but the person performs mainly the functions of management and quality control.
- 1783: Oliver Evans constructs a mechanical mill that already used in-line production principles.
- 1832: The tunnel baking oven is patented in France.
- 1932: The Opel automobile plant is the first in Germany to introduce conveyor production.
Henry Ford's first conveyor line, commissioned in April 1913, was used to assemble generators. Until that time, one worker could assemble 25 to 30 generators in a nine-hour day. This meant that it took about 20 minutes to assemble one generator.
The new line split the process into 29 operations, performed by individual workers with separate generator units, which were delivered to them by a constantly moving conveyor. The new approach reduced the assembly time for one generator to an average of 13 minutes. A year later, the production process was split into 84 operations, and the assembly time for one generator was reduced to 5 minutes.
Henry Ford was born on July 30, 1863 near Dearborn, Michigan. From 1879 he was an apprentice mechanic in Detroit, worked in an electrical engineering company. He spent all his free time making a car. Ford fumbled in his barn every night. During the tests, many malfunctions arose in the car. Either the engine or a wooden flywheel failed, or the transmission belt broke. Finally, in 1893, Ford built a car with a low-powered four-stroke engine. internal combustion rather resembling a four-wheeled bicycle. This car weighed only 27 kg.
From 1893 Henry worked as chief engineer of the Edison Illuminating Company, and in 1899-1902 - in the Detroit Automobile Company. In 1903 he founded the Ford Motor Company, which later became one of the world's largest car manufacturers. In its factories, Ford widely introduced standardization and introduced assembly line assembly. He outlined his ideas about the rational organization of work in the books "My Life and Work" (1922, Russian translation 1924), "Today and Tomorrow" (1926), "Moving Forward" (1930).
Ford was not alone in the automotive industry in the United States. In 1909, there were already 265 firms in this country that produced 126,593 cars. This is more than they were manufactured by that time in all European countries.
In 1903, Ford created racing car... Racer Oldfield won the three-mile race on it. In the same year, Ford organized joint-stock company for the production of cars. 1,700 cars of model "A" were produced. The car had an engine power of 8 liters. with. and could develop maximum speed 50 km / h A bit by today's standards, but already in 1906 the Model K reached a speed of 160 km / h at races.
In the beginning, Ford Motor updated car models frequently. However, in 1908, with the introduction of the Model T, the company's policy changed. The Model T was the first vehicle to be assembled on a conveyor belt, a conveyor-like carcass at the Swift and Company slaughterhouses in Chicago. The car was produced, for the sake of economy, only in black and remained until 1927 the only one produced by Ford. In 1924, half of all cars in the world were Ford-T. It was produced almost unchanged for 20 years. In total, about 15 million "Tin Lizzies" were produced - this is how the Americans called the car. Despite its unprepossessing appearance, the Lizzie's engine worked conscientiously.
In addition, the car was successful and comparatively low cost: production has become mass. It dropped from $ 850 to $ 290. Ford cars began to appear in Europe. They arrived in France, which at that time was the leading automobile power, in 1907. But Ford did not create its own production in this country, but built large factories in Dagenham (England) and in Cologne (Germany). The production expanded steadily. At the end of 1912, only 3,000 cars were produced at the Dagenham plant, a suburb of London. And after about 50 years - 670,000.
And the monument to Henry Ford was erected not in the USA, but in England.
Ford's car was getting cheaper. But in the 1920s, the outdated model began to be crowded out by Chevrolet, Plymouth and others. Ford had to shut down its factories, lay off most of the workers, and retool production.
In 1928 appeared new model- "Ford-A". This car is interesting because it became a prototype. car GAZ-A, which was produced by the Gorky Automobile Plant. At that time, "Ford-A" was considered the best passenger car in the world.
Ford began production of trucks in 1917. After 10 years, a one-and-a-half-ton Ford-AA truck was put on the conveyor, on the basis of which the famous one and a half truck was created in the USSR - truck GAZ-AA.
By 1939, Ford had produced 27 million cars, largely through the takeover of other, smaller firms. And soon the production of passenger cars in the country was banned: the Second World War... On the released production areas Ford began making airplanes (8,685 bombers were manufactured during the war years). Only in 1946 did American car companies they began to produce cars again, moreover, old ones, pre-war stamps.
By the way, in our country, designers worked on drawings of new models already during the war years and immediately after its end they began to make new cars.
The Ford concern did not forget about traffic safety either. Beginning in 1955, his factories began to produce cars with a strongly concave steering wheel, then they used safe door locks, soft trim panel dashboards and even seat belts.
What helped Henry Ford achieve such success? First of all, the introduction of an assembly line into production. A conveyor is a conveyor for moving bulk, lumpy or piece goods. Ford used a conveyor belt in its production to assemble small car parts and even bodies.
In industrial production, conveyors are an integral part technological process... Conveyors allow you to set the pace of production, ensure its rhythm, being the main means of complex mechanization of production lines. technological operations; conveyors, at the same time, relieve workers from heavy and time-consuming transport and handling operations, make their work more productive.
The term "Fordism" is associated with the name of Ford, which is based on the conveyor principle and new methods of labor organization. Each of the workers along the conveyor performed one operation requiring virtually no qualifications.
According to Ford, 43% of workers required training up to one day, for 36% - from one day to one week, and for 6% - 1-2 weeks, for 14% - from 1 month to a year. Introducing Pipeline Build Along with Some Others technical innovations led to a sharp increase in labor productivity and a decrease in production costs, marked the beginning of mass production. At the same time, Fordism led to an unprecedented increase in the intensity of labor, made it empty, stupefying and exhausting. The workers turned into robots. The forced rhythm set by the conveyor belt necessitated the transition to time wages for workers. Ford's system, like Taylorism before it, has become synonymous with the exploitation of workers inherent in the monopoly stage of capitalism. In an effort to suppress the discontent of the workers and prevent them from organizing a struggle in defense of their rights, Ford introduced increased discipline at enterprises, imposed espionage and reprisals against workers' activists.
From the story of a worker at the Ford automobile plant in Dagenham: “For many years, trade union activities have been banned from Ford factories. In My Life, My Achievements, Henry Ford claimed the role of some kind of social reformer and argued that his methods of organizing production and labor could turn bourgeois society into a "society of abundance and social harmony." Ford extolled his system as caring for workers, especially the higher wages in his factories than the industry average. "
In the early 70s, some firms are abandoning extreme forms conveyor production in order to increase the content and attractiveness of labor, and, consequently, its efficiency. For this, conveyor lines are shortened, operations on them are combined, workers are moved along the conveyor and the like.
Let's summarize some of the results. A giant leap in production took place in 1913 when Henry Ford introduced the assembly line to the automotive industry. Until that time, cars were built in much the same way as houses: that is, workers simply chose a place in a factory and assembled a car from top to bottom. The cost was high and therefore only rich people at that time could afford to buy a car.
To make it available to the majority, according to Ford, it was necessary to increase labor productivity. This required:
- limit the number of operations performed by each worker;
- to bring the work closer to those who performed it, and not vice versa;
- provide the most rational sequence of operations from all possible options.
The assembly line method has made car prices affordable for millions of families. As a result, the number of registered cars increased from 944,000 in 1912 to 2.5 million in 1915 and to 20 million in 1925.
Henry Ford was not an economist, but his innovative manufacturing strategy had a revolutionary impact on the production of manufactured consumer goods and the standard of living of Americans.
The "Model T" or "Tin Lizzie" was not the first car that Henry Ford assembled, but before that the assembly was carried out by hand, the process itself took a long time, as a result, the car was a piece of goods, a luxury item. Thanks to the invention of the industrial conveyor for the continuous production of automobiles, Ford, as his contemporaries said, "put America on wheels." The fact is that the conveyor for mass production used before. However, Henry Ford was the first to "put on the conveyor" such a technically complex product as a car.
"Model T" or "Tin Lizzie" sold 15 million
Actually, the first attempt to automate the process was made at Oldsmobile in 1901. There was organized Assembly line: parts and assemblies of the future car were moved on special carts from one work station to another. Production efficiency has increased several times. However, Henry Ford wanted to improve this technology.
Henry Ford and his famous "Tin Lizzie"
They say that the idea automotive conveyor came to Ford's mind after a visit to the Chicago abattoirs. There, the carcasses suspended on chains moved from one "station" to another, where the butchers chopped off pieces, wasting no time on transitions from one workplace to another. Be that as it may, in 1910, Ford built and launched a plant in Highland Park, where a couple of years later he conducted the first experiment using an assembly line. They went to the goal gradually, the generator went to the assembly first, then the rule was extended to the entire engine, and then to the chassis.
Thanks to the conveyor, it took less than 2 hours to produce a car
By cutting down on production time and various costs, Henry Ford also lowered the price of the car. As a result, a personal car became available to the middle class, which previously could only dream of it. The Model T initially cost $ 800, then $ 600, and in the second half of the 1920s dropped to $ 345 in less than two hours. As the price went down, the sales skyrocketed. In total, about 15 million of these machines were produced.
Thanks to in-line production, the cost of the "Model T" dropped to $ 650
Successful production was facilitated not only by the conveyor, but also by the intelligent organization of labor. First, since 1914, Ford began paying workers $ 5 a day, significantly more than the industry average. Secondly, he reduced the working day to 8 hours, and thirdly, he provided his workers with 2 days off. “Freedom is the right to work an appropriate number of hours and receive an appropriate remuneration for it; it is an opportunity to arrange your own personal affairs, "wrote Ford in the book" My Life, My Achievements. "
Ministry of Education Russian Federation
Average comprehensive school №28
on economics on the topic:
"Henry Ford - the founder of the conveyor"
Completed by students of grade 9G:
Ponomareva Olya
Rybakova Irina
Checked:
Malysheva L. M.
Kirov 2001
Henry Ford.
Henry Ford was born on 30.07.1863 near Dearborn, Michigan. From 1879 he was an apprentice mechanic in Detroit, worked in an electrical engineering company. He spent all his free time making a car. Ford fumbled in his barn every night. When testing, there were many faults in the car. Either the engine or a wooden flywheel failed, or the transmission belt broke. Finally, in 1893, Ford built a low-powered car. four-stroke engine internal combustion, more like a four-wheeled bicycle. This car weighed only 27 kg. From 1893 Henry worked as chief engineer of the Edison Illuminating Company, and in 1899 - 1902. - to the Detroit Car Company.
In 1903 he founded the Ford Motor Company, which later became one of the world's largest automotive companies. In its factories, Ford widely introduced standardization and introduced assembly line assembly. He outlined his ideas about the organization of work in the works "My Life and Work" (1922, Russian translation of 1924), "Today and Tomorrow" (1926), "Moving Forward" (1930).
Ford was not alone in building cars in the United States. In 1909, there were already 265 car firms who produced 126,593 cars. This is more than them by then
Made in all European countries.
In 1903, Ford created a racing car. Racer Oldfield won a three-mile race on it. In the same year, Ford organized a joint stock company for the production of automobiles. 1700 cars of model "A" were produced. The car had an engine power of 8 liters. with. and could reach a maximum speed of 50 km / h. Few? In our times, very low speed.
But already in 1906 the model "K" was released (speed at races 160 km / h).
In the beginning, Ford Motor updated car models frequently. However, in 1908 the Model "T" appeared. It is the first car to be assembled on a conveyor belt principle for carcass handling at the Swift and Company slaughterhouse in Chicago. Model “T” was produced, for the sake of economy, only in black and remained until 1927 the only one produced by Ford. In 1924, half of all cars in the world were Ford-T. It was produced almost unchanged for 20 years. About 15 million "Tins of Lizzie" were produced - this is how the Americans nicknamed new car... It looked like a small black box on wheels. Needless to say, it was an unprepossessing structure, open to all winds. But the motor, the motor worked conscientiously.
And this ensured the success of the car. This is also a relatively low cost: production has become mass production. From $ 850 to $ 290. Ford cars began to appear in Europe. They arrived in France, which at that time was the leading automobile power, in 1907. But Ford did not create his own production in this country, but he built large factories in Dagenhem (England) and in Cologne (Germany). The production expanded steadily. At the end of 1912, only 3,000 cars were produced at the Dagenham plant, a suburb of London. And after about 50 years - 670,000.
... The wide muddy Thames flows. The buildings of a huge factory are visible. Nearby there is a bronze monument on a pedestal. On it, "G. Ford ". Yes, a monument to the king automobile empire, oddly enough, it was staged not in the USA, but in England.
Ford's car was getting cheaper. But by the 20s it was outdated. On American market it began to be crowded out by "Chevrolets", "Plymouths", and other models of cars.
Then Ford stopped its factories, laid off most of the workers, and began to retool production.
In 1928 a new model appeared - "Ford - A". This car is interesting in that it became the prototype of the GAZ-A car, which was produced by the Gorky Automobile Plant.
At that time, "Ford - A" was considered the best passenger car in the world. Ford began production of trucks in 1917. Ten years later, a one-and-a-half-ton Ford-AA truck was put on the conveyor, on the basis of which the famous GAZ-AA truck was later created.
… The company grew and became rich. By 1939, the Ford Corporation had already produced 27 million cars, largely through the takeover of other, small firms. And soon the production of cars in the country was banned: the Second World War began. On the vacated production areas, Ford began to make aircraft, 8685 bombers were manufactured by the company during the war years. It was only in 1946 that passenger cars began to be produced again, moreover, old, pre-war brands. Other American auto companies did the same. By the way, this was not the case in our country. During the war, Soviet designers were already working on blueprints for new models. And when the war thunder ceased, we immediately began to make new cars without a break. Gorky Automobile Plant – a car GAZ - 20 "Pobeda" and the GAZ - 51 truck, the Moscow Automobile Plant ZIL - 150 and ZIL - 110, Yaroslavsky - the YaAZ - 200.
Traffic safety is being talked about everywhere. First of all, the Ford concern. Beginning in 1955, his factories began to produce cars with a strongly concave steering wheel, then they used safe door locks, soft dashboard trim and even seat belts.
Up to 4 million cars are produced annually by Ford factories. In order not to lag behind, to beat competitors, the "empire" allocates large sums for experimental - design and scientific - research work... The Ford Research Center in Dearborn employs 12,000 people and has two proving grounds in Arizona and Michigan.
Firm "Ford" was created full cycle production, including the manufacture of steel and glass. The Ford concern built automotive and assembly plants in many countries of the world: in England, Canada, Germany, Brazil and others. In Australia, for example, there are five assembly plants and one Ford automobile plant.
What helped Henry Ford achieve such success? Implementation of an assembly line into production. Conveyor (from English to transport) conveyor, machine continuous action for moving bulk, lumpy or piece goods. Ford used a conveyor belt in its production to assemble small car parts and even bodies. The efficiency of using a conveyor in the technological process of any production depends on how the type and parameters of the selected conveyor correspond to the properties of the cargo and the conditions in which the technological process takes place. These conditions include: productivity, transportation length, track shape and direction of movement (horizontal, inclined, vertical, combined; conditions for loading and unloading the conveyor; dimensions of the cargo, its shape, specific density, lumpiness, humidity, temperature, etc.). The rhythm and intensity of delivery, and various local factors also matter.
High productivity, simplicity of design and relatively low cost, the ability to perform various technological operations on the conveyor, low labor intensity of work, ensuring labor safety, improving its conditions - all this led to wide application conveyor. It was used in all areas of the economy: in ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgy, mining, chemical, food and other industries. Just as we have already seen from the above, in mechanical engineering. In industrial production, conveyors are an integral part of the technological process. Conveyors allow you to set and regulate the pace of production, ensure its rhythm, being the main means of complex mechanization of transport and loading and unloading processes and flow technological operations; conveyors, at the same time, relieve workers from heavy and time-consuming transport and loading and unloading operations, making their work more productive. Wide conveyorization is one of the characteristic features developed industrial production.
The assembly of products with their continuous or periodic movement, carried out forcibly on a conveyor, is called conveyor assembly. It is carried out in line production and is aimed at reducing the labor intensity of the assembly process, alleviating working conditions and ensuring rhythmic production. Conveyor assembly requires strict segmentation assembly process into individual elements. Each operation is performed by one worker or automatically. In the latter case, the functions of the worker include only the control and management of the assembly machine. Most widely conveyor assembly widespread in large-scale and mass production.
Let's return to the topic of "Henry Ford" and his business and the concern he founded. In the early 1980s, Ford was in dire financial straits, rescued by its Western European subsidiaries, which were doing well at the time. In the face of intense competition, the company's engineers had to seriously engage in updating the manufactured models and developing fundamentally new designs of automotive components.
Henry Ford created the automobile power (in which he was undoubtedly helped by the invention of the conveyor belt). The term "Fordism" is associated with his name.
Fordism, a system of organizing mass production in the USA in the first quarter of the 20th century. It is named after the American engineer and industrialist Henry Ford, who first introduced it to his automobile factories.
The basis of Fordism and the new methods of organizing production caused by it was assembly line... Each of the workers, placed along the conveyor, carried out one operation, consisting of several (one and one) labor movements, for the implementation of which practically no qualifications were required. According to Ford, 43% of workers required training up to one day, for 36% - from one day to one week, and for 6% - 1-2 weeks, for 14% - from 1 month to a year.
Many associate the history of the creation of the conveyor with the name of Henry Ford (1863-1947), but as in many cases when it comes to world-wide inventions, they do not have one author. The world-famous American industrialist only managed to complete this inventive process, which lasted more than one century. In fact, the first conveyors were known several thousand years ago. In ancient Egypt, China and Mesopotamia, they used special devices for continuous water supply when irrigating fields.
History is precisely belt conveyors begins in the second half of the 17th century. Since then, conveyors have become an inevitable part of material handling. In the early years, the system of such a conveyor and its operation was quite simple - a wooden board and a belt that moved along it. The first ribbons were made from leather, canvas, or rubber.
Heiml Goddard was the first person to receive a patent for a roller conveyor in 1908. A few years later, in 1919, conveyors began to be used in automotive production... Undoubtedly, the honor of introducing the conveyor to the masses belongs to Henry Ford. He decided to put the production of cheap " people's car". In addition, it was he who connected the workplaces with a moving belt. At the first steps, the assembly line carried only the chassis - the basis of the future car. As the movement progressed, the chassis was "overgrown" with new details that were installed by the workers: some - the gearbox, some - the engine, some - the wheels or headlights. At the end of the path on the conveyor was already completely finished car... This is the principle that conveyors operate at all enterprises in the world today. This is how the conveyor became the most popular tool for transferring both small and heavy parts and materials in factories.
During the 1920s, belt conveyors became widespread and also underwent major changes. They began to be used in coal mines to move ore over distances of more than 8 km. Those conveyors were made from layers of cotton and rubber covers. The longest belt conveyor in use today, 60 miles long, is located in the phosphate mines of Western Sahara. One of the turning points in the history of belt conveyors was the introduction of synthetic conveyor belts. This happened during World War II, mainly due to a shortage of natural materials such as cotton, rubber and canvas. Since then, synthetic belt conveyors have become popular in various fields.
With increasing production requirements, more and more synthetic plastics and fabrics are used in the manufacture of conveyor belts: polyester, polyamide, polyurethane, PVC, polyethylene, butyl, neoprene, nylon, silicone and many other types of polymers.
CBR (Conveyor Belt Russia) maintains all the traditions of the production of synthetic conveyor belts dating back to the 1950s. The company's specialists offer you complete services. We will study your needs and give recommendations. We offer round-the-clock service and installation services. Experts in the field belt conveyors share their knowledge, help you choose conveyor belt, will be manufactured and installed on the conveyor.
