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I am referring to "Twenty years before Henry Ford convinced the world he was onto something". No need to convince anybody since Ford started manufacturing and

by simo7 10y ago

I am referring to "Twenty years before Henry Ford convinced the world he was onto something". No need to convince anybody since Ford started manufacturing and commercializing cars roughly 10 years after his peers in Europe.

masklinn 10y ago
> No need to convince anybody since Ford started manufacturing and commercializing cars 10 years after his peers in Europe. Closer to 20 and he was neither pioneer of production-line manufacturing (that was Olds) nor of US car manufacturing (that's Duryea followed by Studebaker). The something he was on to was the moving assembly line (where the posts are fixed and the assembly moves around), inspired by slaughterhouse butchery lines.
pbhjpbhj 10y ago
The thing Ford was on to was one-job production lines (where each worker does one job-atom and the work moves to the next stage) wasn't it? IIRC Ford's project was to make the car affordable to those of more modest means, so "everyone" could have a car. If you look at the quote then this interpretation makes more sense IMO - the quote clearly considers the position that cars were being made commercially 20 years before Ford. TL;DR the Ford point is he democratised car use in the face of congress's earlier consideration that such widespread use would kill agriculture and people. (Mind you the congress memo quote seems pretty right on).
- masklinn 10y ago
  > The thing Ford was on to was one-job production lines (where each worker does one job-atom and the work moves to the next stage) wasn't it? IIRC Olds already had a one-job production line, but the line was static and workers had to move around between assemblies. Ford's innovation was to make the workers "static" (with well laid out workspaces) and move the assembly between the jobs.
  - pbhjpbhj 10y ago
    I think you're right: I toyed with adding "static" but then needed to emphasise it was the workers who were static, then it was getting too wordy.
- simo7 10y ago
  It's a far-reaching interpretation in my opinion. The author is talking about product innovation, all the examples are on people who invented famous products. When he says : "Twenty years before Henry Ford convinced..". Well the congress's statement is from 1875, 20 years later the first cars appeared. Ford came 10 years later. The event he's referring to is clearly the car invention It's quite obvious that he's presenting Ford as the inventor of the car.

by simo7 10y ago

masklinn 10y ago

> No need to convince anybody since Ford started manufacturing and commercializing cars 10 years after his peers in Europe. Closer to 20 and he was neither pioneer of production-line manufacturing (that was Olds) nor of US car manufacturing (that's Duryea followed by Studebaker). The something he was on to was the moving assembly line (where the posts are fixed and the assembly moves around), inspired by slaughterhouse butchery lines.

pbhjpbhj 10y ago

The thing Ford was on to was one-job production lines (where each worker does one job-atom and the work moves to the next stage) wasn't it? IIRC Ford's project was to make the car affordable to those of more modest means, so "everyone" could have a car. If you look at the quote then this interpretation makes more sense IMO - the quote clearly considers the position that cars were being made commercially 20 years before Ford. TL;DR the Ford point is he democratised car use in the face of congress's earlier consideration that such widespread use would kill agriculture and people. (Mind you the congress memo quote seems pretty right on).

masklinn 10y ago
> The thing Ford was on to was one-job production lines (where each worker does one job-atom and the work moves to the next stage) wasn't it? IIRC Olds already had a one-job production line, but the line was static and workers had to move around between assemblies. Ford's innovation was to make the workers "static" (with well laid out workspaces) and move the assembly between the jobs.
- pbhjpbhj 10y ago
  I think you're right: I toyed with adding "static" but then needed to emphasise it was the workers who were static, then it was getting too wordy.
simo7 10y ago
It's a far-reaching interpretation in my opinion. The author is talking about product innovation, all the examples are on people who invented famous products. When he says : "Twenty years before Henry Ford convinced..". Well the congress's statement is from 1875, 20 years later the first cars appeared. Ford came 10 years later. The event he's referring to is clearly the car invention It's quite obvious that he's presenting Ford as the inventor of the car.