
How Model Ts were made… - vamsee
http://www.adafruit.com/blog/2011/04/25/how-model-ts-were-made/
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bane
Something that struck me as interesting is that not only did the assembly line
concept enforce consistency in mass manufacturing of parts and product, and
isolating assembly into simple repeatable processes (hook this up here, turn
this, repeat), but the literal line itself doesn't ever stop. It enforces
efficiency from the workers. You _had_ to get your part onto the vehicle
before it moved onto the next station or the vehicle would simply move on.

No longer was manufacturing dictated by the speed of the worker, the process
dictated the speed _to_ the worker. The increase in efficiency alone must have
been astronomical.

I wonder if in some ways, some of the plants I've seen (like VWs newer
plants), that _don't_ have this kind of enforced production schedule are
really a step back.

~~~
asolove
There is an enormous school of thought around that question, and current
opinion leans against you.

The question is: is the bigger problem workers occasionally being slow, or
workers doing things to a fixed schedule such that they can't identify and
resolve problems right away?

See the Wikipedia page on lean manufacturing:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lean_manufacturing>

~~~
bane
I can't recall off the top of my head, how do Toyota plants operate? Does the
line stop at each worker's station until the worker signals "done"?

(excluding the fully mechanized parts of the line of course)

~~~
GoodIntentions
most modern plants keep the vehicle in motion at a manageable rate. At the low
end, from 45 sec, to over 2 minutes for a low volume line, per pitch.

Tasks are theoretically balanced across stations so that each employee gets
their task(s) complete before the body pitches into the next station. If there
is a critical task not done, they can halt the line. (and get all kinds of
help and motivation they'd probably like to avoid)

Lines are broken out into business units with small buffers between each so
that a short stoppage in one area doesn't stop any other.

tl;dr lines keep moving

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rmason
What amazes me is how much credit Henry Ford got for things he didn't do:

Henry didn't design the Model T or the Ford logo it was C. Harold Wills his
first employee

Henry didn't come up with the concept of the $5 a day wage it was his
lieutenant James Couzens who later became a US senator from Michigan.

Yet history books generally give him all the credit. The book Henry's
lieutenants details the accomplishments of these executives.

~~~
tricky
Along those lines, my history classes in HS said Henry Ford was the first
manufacturer to find success using interchangeable parts. Not true. The rifle
industry got there first.

~~~
Semiapies
To be blunt, US history textbooks generally _suck_. A lot of simplified public
mythology makes it to classrooms to be regurgitated.

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allwein
What impressed me were the videos of people taking the Model T "off-roading".
I would never attempt to drive my current car into a ditch like that.

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samatman
The first thing that struck me is how _white_ everyone is.

When did Ford racially integrate? Wikipedia's got nothing.

~~~
zeteo
You must have a pretty racist world view if the _first_ thing that strikes you
in a tech story is the skin color of the people involved.

~~~
samatman
Well, that's possible. Or, I could be from the Detroit area, and be well
familiar with the current racial makeup of the UAW.

I've seen a modern GM assembly line. The whiteness of this historical assembly
line is... quite striking.

~~~
pchristensen
The boom in industrial manufacturing work is what drove a lot of the migration
of southern blacks to the Northeast and Midwest. These early Ford plants were
at the beginning of that movement.

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flexd
I can't be the only one that immediately thought you were talking about
terminators. This is really cool regardless.

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pitdesi
If you enjoyed this, you should definitely visit the Henry Ford Museum in
Dearborn, Mi... They take apart and reassemble a model T everyday in the
museum.

My favorite part of the museum is the Rouge factory tour. Completely
integrated manufacturing, the type that I don't think exists anywhere in the
world. Essentially you had coal and iron ore come in one side of the factory
and Model A's being pumped out 48 hours later on the other side. An incredible
site (now it's just a Ford Truck Assembly, but you can see amazing videos of
the past) <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_River_Rouge_Complex>

Another must visit factory is Boeing in Everett, Wa
<http://www.boeing.com/commercial/tours/index.html>

