HENRY

FORD

The Model T

AND THE

Moving Assembly Line

By Emily Robinson

Henry Ford was the founder of the Ford motor, and invented the moving assembly

line. He then used the assembly line to manufacture cars. Over his years running his

business he earned a great amount of money, and was worth 188.1 billion as of 2008. Henry

Ford’s inventions impacted the people of the U.S, his workers, and he even impacted other

manufacturing companies to come.

When Henry Ford started the Ford Motor Company in 1903, he wanted to “build a car

for the great multitude.” Until he began making cars, cars were very expensive, and only for the

wealthy. In 1906 Henry Ford started to plan the Model T. He went to a race track and observed

the wreckage from one of the French race cars. He learned that these cars were made of a

different type of steel than all of the cars that were currently being made in the United States.

These cars were made of an vanadium alloy. This alloy was almost three times stronger than

the alloy that was used in the cars in America. Henry Ford ran into a problem though. No one in

America knew how to make this type of alloy, so he set up a steel mill to produce this new alloy.

In 1908 he introduced the Model T for $950. In 1909 the price of the car was $825. In the first

year of production Henry Ford sold 10,000 Model T’s. This was more than any other automobile

model before.Eventually, the price dipped down to as low as $280. Almost 15,500,000 Model

T’s were sold in the United States.

Henry Ford also revolutionized manufacturing. He wanted to find a more efficient way to

make cars, so that they could continue to lower the price. He went and observed they things

that other companies were doing at the time. He came up with four different principles to make

manufacturing more efficient. These principles were interchangeable parts, continuous flow,

division of labor, and reducing wasted effort. To make the parts interchangeable he improved

the cutting tools and some of the other machinery. In late 1913 he started using the assembly

line in his manufacturing. He broke down the process of making the Model T into 84 individual

steps. This allowed the factory workers to be able to do one thing well instead of having to be

able to make an entire car. This process was much faster, and was more efficient. It decreased

production time by almost 13%. It only took 93 minutes to make a chassis with the assembly

line whereas before it took 728 minutes.

Henry Ford also impacted his employees. When he made the parts of his vehicles

interchangeable he didn’t need the high skilled workers that made all of the parts by hand.

He was able to hire lower skilled workers, who were not able to find jobs as easily elsewhere.

Seeing how they were able to make cars so much faster, he was able to pay his employees

even more. The minimum wage for his employees went from $2.34 an hour to $5 an hour. This

was twice as much as what most manufacturing companies paid their employee. Seeing how

he paid his employees so much more they were also able to buy cars. This was good for Henry

Ford, because his employees were buying Model T’s. The amount of hours his employees had

to work also decreased. They went from working nine hours a day to eight hours a day.

Henry Ford changed the way that cars were manufactured and sold. He changed the

way that companies would manufacture their products. He had a huge impact on the motor

industry, industries to come that would use the assembly line, and his employees.

"Henry Ford (1863-1947)." About.com Inventors. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Nov. 2012. <http:/

/inventors.about.com/od/fstartinventors/a/HenryFord.htm>.

"Ford Model T." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 11 July 2012. Web. 09 Nov. 2012.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Model_T>.

"Henry Ford." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 11 Aug. 2012. Web. 09 Nov. 2012.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Ford>.

"Ford Model T History and The Early Years Of the Ford Motor Company." History Of

The Ford Model T, Henry Ford and Ford Motor Company Background, History and Facts. N.p.,

n.d. Web. 09 Nov. 2012.

<http://www.modelt.ca/background.html>.

"Henry Ford; Inventor of the Moving Assembly Line." American Inventors. American

Inventors, 2008. Web. 7 Nov. 2012.

<http://www.american-inventor.com/henry-ford.aspx>.

"Ford Installs the First Moving Assembly Line 1913." A Science Odyssey People and

Discoveries. MPBN, 1998. Web. 7 Nov. 2012. <http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/entries/

dt13as.html>.