Modern car assembly line.
An assembly line is a manufacturing process in which parts (usually interchangeable parts) are added to a product in a sequential manner using optimally planned logistics to create a finished product much faster than with handcrafting-type methods. The best known form of the assembly line, the moving assembly line, was realized into practice by Ford Motor Company between 1908 and 1915, and made famous in the following decade by the social ramifications of mass production, such as the affordability of the Ford Model T and the introduction of high wages for Ford workers. However, the various preconditions for the development at Ford stretched far back into the 19th century. Ford was the first company to build large factories around the concept. Mass production via assembly lines is widely considered to be the catalyst which initiated the modern consumer culture by making possible low unit costs for manufactured goods.
Sociological problems
Sociological work has explored the social alienation and boredom that some workers feel because of the repetition of doing the same specialized task all day long.1 Because workers have to stand in the same place for hours and repeat the same motion hundreds of times per day, repetitive stress injuries are a possible pathology of occupational safety. Industrial noise also proved dangerous. When it was not too high, workers were often prohibited from talking. Charles Piaget, a skilled worker at the LIP factory, recalled that beside being prohibited from speaking, the semi-skilled workers had only 25 centimeters in which to move.2 Industrial ergonomics later tried to minimize physical trauma.
See also
References
Bibliography
- Ford, Henry; with Crowther, Samuel (1922), My Life and Work, Garden City, New York, USA: Garden City Publishing Company, Inc, http://www.gutenberg.net/etext/7213 Various republications, including ISBN 9781406500189. Original is public domain in U.S.
- Georgano, G. N. (1985), Cars: Early and Vintage, 1886-1930, London: Grange-Universal .
- Hounshell, David A. (1984), From the American system to mass production, 1800-1932: The development of manufacturing technology in the United States, Baltimore, Maryland, USA: Johns Hopkins University Press, ISBN 978-0-8018-2975-8, LCCN 83-016269 .
- Roe, Joseph Wickham (1916), English and American Tool Builders, New Haven, CT, USA: Yale University Press, Reprinted by Lindsay Publications, Inc., Bradley, IL, USA. ISBN 978-0-917914-73-7, http://books.google.com/books?id=X-EJAAAAIAAJ&pg=PR5&lpg=PR5&dq=wickham+roe+1916&source=web&ots=kLw74jcaEj&sig=lGr6LvJeCKcceLTKOJsYAUx_ajY#PPA129,M1
- Sorensen, Charles E.; with Williamson, Samuel T. (1956), My Forty Years with Ford, New York: Norton, OCLC 912748 . Various republications, including ISBN 9780814332795.
- We-Min Chow (1990). Assembly Line Design.
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