Ford and Taylor Scientific Management (Edited)

in Britain the Vulcan Motor Company was

proud to film The Way their workers

assembled cars slowly and carefully by

hand Craftsmen worked in their own way

at their own pace the whole process took

several weeks from start to

finish these handmade cars were so

expensive that a wide Gulf separated

those who built them from those who

bought

them but the days when cars were just

luxuries for the rich were drawing to a

close in 1908 one man's vision would

change manufacturing and create a new

market Henry Ford set out to make the

simplest car

ever a car for Rural America a 20th

century equivalent of the horse and

buggy

to produce the Model T cheaply Ford knew

he had to change the way cars were built

that meant changing the way his workers

worked as he reorganized his Factory to

turn out model T's he was influenced by

the efficiency expert Frederick

Taylor Taylor complained that hardly a

Workman can be found who doesn't devote

his time to studying just how slowly he

can work and then he devoted his life to

speeding them up

[Music]

when Taylor was brought in he first

timed the workers with stopwatches and

noted their every

movement in a famous experiment at an

Iron Works he reorganized a worker named

Schmidt previously Schmidt had hand

carried 12 tons of pig iron a day up

from a wagon after Taylor rearranged

things the tolerant Mr Schmidt found

himself carrying 40 tons and production

had been raised

300% called into an office Taylor helped

the world's fastest typist type even

faster the new world record of 150 words

a minute was achieved by Margaret Owen

and Taylor claimed much of the

[Music]

credit at Ford's Factory taylorism meant

dividing automobile production into

simple repetitive

steps there would be no need for skilled

Craftsman with years of

apprenticeship men could learn to do any

job

quickly a trained wheel right no longer

made each wheel in its

entirety wheel making was broken down

into almost 100 steps done by different

men at different

machines it was much faster but workers

could still complete only 200 Cars a day

so in 1913 Ford introduced his most

revolutionary change

[Music]

yet in those days each car was built

from the frame up on stationary wooden

horses the Ford Motor Company filmed a

reenactment of how Henry Ford first

tried out his new idea Henry Ford

watched it for a while and he had an

inspiration instead of moving the men

past the cars why not move the cars past

the

men so on One Hot August morning they

tried it that way a husky young fell put

a rope over his shoulder and Henry Ford

called let's

[Music]

go and at that very moment as the

workmen began to fasten the parts onto

the slowly moving car the assembly line

was born

soon assembly lines were up and running

in Ford's Factory the lines became the

key to mass production A system that

would remain virtually unchanged for

most of the

[Music]

century a network of clanging conveyors

was used to deliver parts to an exact

point on the

[Music]

line the workers became an integral part

of the Great machine and management set

the pace without discussion or

negotiation or unions were

forbidden the men faced new pressure as

the final assembly line beat out the

Rhythm for the whole Factory there was

no way they could stop or slow it

down few stood the pace and den for long

men tried to for a few weeks then

quit but Ford had an answer the company

was making record profits the time taken

to build each car had dropped to 1 and

1/2 hours so he could afford to raise

pay when he announced he was doubling

wages to the unheard of level of $5 a

day the factory was besieged with

applicants other car makers adopted the

Ford method Ford's recipe mass

production low costs High wages was

creating not only cheap cars but

well-paid

workers above all it was the constant

supply of new men arriving in Detroit

that made it

possible the company set the terms if

they worked fast and obeyed orders they

got the

wages it was a game for which Ford made

the rules simple but strict High pay for

hard

work

what Mr Ford wanted uh from his workers

was a good day's work on the shift go

home eat and go to bed and you be save

your strength and get up and give him a

good day the next day that was that that

just pops in my mind and it is a it is

the

truth Ford's private security Force the

plant Protection Service kept

disciplined anyone who recruited for the

unions was

fired company spies kept a lookout for

those considered to be troublemaker

ERS workers on the Rouge lines had never

had job security now those lucky enough

still to have jobs became increasingly

powerless you couldn't even talk to guys

on the job not to let the foran see you

there were Whispering going on and

whatnot by a friend of mine was fired

three times a guy by the name of John

Gallow for smiling if you went to the

bathroom uh you had to get permission

from your

supervisor and uh if you was in there

over 3 or 4 minutes you would had one of

the service guys if you had to use the

bathroom to relieve your bows he would

come up and put his foot while you flush

and he says stay up and if when you

stand up if there was something in that

toilet out you

go