\"'45 ...:. e (:1. 4 Search X |M_A1_Feb 2022 / 1.2 Mass production: The Ford '5 Mode! 1-l21 The outstanding contribution of the automotive industry to technological advance was the introduction of full-scale mass production, a process combining precision, standardization, interchangeability, synchronization, and continuity. Mass production was an American innovation. The United States, with its large population, high standard of living, and long distances, was the natural birthplace of the technique, which had been partly explored in the 19th century. Although Europe had shared in the experimentation, the American role was emphasized in the popular description of standardization and interchangeability as \"the American system of manufacture.\" The fundamental techniques were known, but they had not previously been applied to the manufacture of a mechanism as complex as a motor vehicle (see work, history of the organization of). The kind of interchangeability achieved by the \"American system\" was dramatically demonstrated in 1908 at the British Royal Automobile Club in London: three Cadillac cars were disassembled, the parts were mixed together, 39 parts were removed at random and replaced from dealer's stock, and the cars were reassembled and driven 300 km (500 miles) without trouble. Henry M. Leland, founder of the Cadillac Motor Car Company and the man responsible for this feat of Showmanship, later enlisted the aid of a noted electrical engineer, Charles F. Kettering, in developing the electric starter, a signicant innovation in promoting the acceptability of the gasoline-powered automobile. The mass-produced automobile is generally and correctly attributed to Henry Ford, but he was not alone in seeing the possibilities in a mass market. Ransom E. Olds made the first major bid for the mass market with a famous curved-dash Oldsmobile buggy in i901. Although the rst Oldsmobile was a popular car, it was too lightly built to withstand rough usage. The same defect applied to Olds's imitators. Ford, more successful in realizing his dream of \"a car for the great multitude,\" designed his car rst and then considered the problem of producing it cheaply. The car was the so-called Model T, the best-known motor vehicle in history. It was built to be durable for service on the rough American country roads of that period, economical to operate, and easy to maintain and repair, It was rst put on the market in 1908, and more than 15 million were built before it was discontinued in 1927. When the design of the Model T proved successful, Ford and his associates turned to the problem of producing the car in large volume and at a low unit cost. The solution was found in the moving assembly line, a method rst tested in assembling magnetos. Aer more experimentation, in 1913 the Ford Motor Company displayed to the world the complete assembly-line mass production of motor vehicles. The technique consisted of two basic elements: a conveyor system and the limitation of each worker to a single repetitive task. Despite its deceptive simplicity, the technique required elaborate planning and synchronization. This was a process invention that was characteristic of the Taylorist way of producing. The assembly line broke down the task of assembling an automobile into small parts and gave workers a standard (and small) amount of time to carry out this task. The high productivity (and consequently, relatively low prices of the nal product) that was associated with this, led to rapid growth of the sales of the Model-T Ford, leaving other automobiles brands (including versions based on different engines, such as electric motors or steam engines) far behind. The rst Ford assembly line permitted only very minor variations in the basic model, a limitation that was compensated for by the low cost. The price of the Model T touring car dropped from $950 in 1909 to $360 in 1916 and still lower to an incredible $290 in [926. By that time Ford was producing half of all the motor vehicles in the world. Ford's success inspired imitation and competition, but his primacy remained unchallenged until he lost it in the mid-19205 by refusing to recognize that the Model T had become outmoded. More luxurious and better-styled cars appeared at prices not much higher than that of the Model T, and these were increasingly available to low-income purchasers through a growing used-car market. In Britain. William R. Morris (later Lord Nufeld) undertook to emulate Ford as early as 1912, but he found British engineering rms reluctant to commit themselves to the large-scale manufacture of automotive parts. Morris in fact tLlIDCd to the United States for his parts, but these early efforts were cut short by World War 1. In the 1920s Morris resumed the production of low-priced cars, along with his British competitor Herbert Austin and Andre-Gustave Citron and Louis Renault in France. British manufacturers had to face the problem of a tax on horsepower, calculated on a formula based on bore and the number of cylinders. The effect was to encourage the design of small engines that had cylinders with narrow bore and long stroke, in contrast to the wide-bore, short-stroke engines favoured elsewhere. This design handicapped the sale of British cars abroad and kept production from growing. it was not until 1934 that Morris Motors nally felt justied in installing a moving assembly line; the Hillman Company had preceded Morris in this by a year or two