Henry Ford - A Great Innovator

Ford – The Master Craftsman of Automobile Contd...

He worked for two years in developing the design and plan of Model T. He conducted thorough research on materials required to build the car, sometimes in an unorthodox fashion. After a car race in Florida, Ford scrutinized the wreck of a crashed French car and observed that many of its parts weighed much less than the usual steel. Ford's team at Piquette Avenue concluded that the French were using a type of vanadium¹⁸ alloy. This was something the Americans did not know to manufacture. Ford found that while the finest of steel alloys utilized by US auto-manufacturers offered a tenacity of only 60,000 ductile pounds, vanadium steel (though much lighter than US steel) offered a tenacity of 170,000 ductile pounds. Ford hired a metallurgist and got a steady supply of vanadium from a steel mill in the US, which made it possible for the Ford Co. to switch to using vanadium steel for its new Model T. This made Ford Co. the only manufacturer to use vanadium in the world apart from French racing cars during that time.

Assembly-Line – A 'Paradigm Shift' in Automobile Manufacturing

The Ford Co. started its car manufacturing operations using the craft production system in 1903. Under this system, all cars were made up of the basic chassis and engine, but the body was designed to suit individual tastes. In this system, the manufacturing costs were high and did not decline with increase in volumes. When the Ford Co. began operations, assembly stands on which a whole car was assembled usually by one fitter (assembler) were used. Before 1908, a Ford worker assembled a large part of a car before proceeding to the next car. The fitters performed the same set of activities repetitively at their fixed assembly stands. Workers procured the necessary parts, filed them, so that they would fit and then bolted them in at the appropriate place.

Later, to increase the efficiency of the process, each workstation was supplied with the required parts; this allowed the assemblers to remain at a given place throughout the day. Ford introduced the mass-production system in 1908 for the production of Model T. Through his continuous innovations, he also revolutionized this idea, which he had introduced so successfully. The novelty in this system was that the parts were standardized and fixing them on became much easier. To enable the parts to be used interchangeably, Ford standardized the gauging sytem¹⁹ throughout the production process.

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18] A bright white, soft, ductile metallic element found in several minerals (notably vanadinite and carnotite), having good structural strength and used in rust-resistant high-speed tools, as a carbon stabilizer in some steels, as a titanium-steel bonding agent, and as a catalyst.

19] A measuring system in which the unit of measurement was made common for all parts and components.

Case Details

Case Code : LDEN025
Themes: Corporate Social Responsibility, Entrepreneurship
Case Length : 13 Pages
Period : 1903
Organization : Ford Motor Corporation
Pub Date : 2003
Teaching Note : Not Available
Countries : USA
Industry : Automobile

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