ASSEMBLY LINE

Developed in the early twentieth century, assembly line methods greatly increased the efficiency and productivity of manufacturing. The moving assembly line is a highly mechanized process that breaks manufacturing tasks down to the smallest detail. A product moves along a conveyor belt that is lined with workers. Each laborer performs one simple operation in the production process, so that by the time the product reaches the end of the line, it has undergone many different operations and is completely finished.

This method of mass product manufacturing can be done by largely unskilled laborers. It is an early example of the growing interaction between human laborers and machines in the workplace. The increased production and efficiency not only allowed businesses to put more of their product on the market, but it also lowered the costs of production. This, in turn, decreased the cost of the product to consumers.

The assembly line was first used by the brewing, canning, milling, and meatpacking industries. The most successful early use of the assembly line is in the automobile industry. In 1913, Henry Ford (1863–1947) began to use the assembly line at his Ford Motor Company in Highland Park, Michigan. Ford used the method in the assembly of the flywheel magneto, a part of the automobile's electrical system. It showed such promise that a year later, in 1914, Ford introduced an electrically driven endless-chain conveyor to move entire auto chassis down the line for production. It was a success. Production increased from 475 cars in a nine-hour day to over 1200 cars in an eight-hour day. By using the moving assembly line, Ford Motor Company tripled production and reduced labor time per vehicle by almost 90 percent.

Since Henry Ford's success, the assembly line process has continued to grow. One development is the modular assembly. This process strives to increase efficiency by having parts of a whole product produced on subassembly lines before joining the main line for final production. For example, in the automobile industry the chassis, interior, and body would each be produced on their own subassembly line before joining together at the final stages of production.

The new assembly line methods being developed all aim to refine its original goal—to improve the production process by reducing the amount of time workers and machines spend on specific tasks.