Henry Ford – Changing the Automotive Industry

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I am sure if I asked the class what is something that they couldn’t live without, it would be a car and without Henry Ford it might have been a while before automobiles became easily assailable to the general population. With the help of Henry Ford the auto industry was forever changed by the invention of the assembly line.

In this story of Henry Ford I will tell you who he was, his invention, how his invention changed the auto industry

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Who was Henry Ford?

 Henry Ford was born in 1863 to William and Mary Ford. They resided it what is now Dearborn, MI and was one of 6 children. His family owned a prosperous farm where he worked up until age 16 where he began to find his true passion, machines. Ford decided to head to the big city, Detroit, where he began work as a machine apprentice.  With the skills that Ford learned as a machine apprentice he was able to improve his Dad’s farm equipment which help the grow even more. As you can see even at a young age Ford was always trying to come up with new ways to improve productive.

In 1888, Ford married Clara Ala Bryant and they had one child, Edsel Ford. Before Ford struck rich by forming Ford Motor Company he supported his family by farming and a small sawmill.

By 1891, Ford had gained enough knowledge to land a job as an engineer with he Edison Illuminating Company. Ford was able to move up the ranks at Edison Illuminating Company which gave him enough extra money to focus more on his personal experiments dealing with internal combustion engines. After about 5 years of working on many experiments Ford was able to create his own self-propelled vehicle called the Quadricycle. The Quadricycle had for wire wheels that look similar to heavy bicycle wheels and was steered with a  tiller like a boat. The Quadricycle only had two forward speeds and no reverse.

Even though Ford was not the first person to create their own gasoline powered vehicle he was one of several automotive pioneers who helped America become a nation or motorists and a the automobile capital of the world.

Below is a link to a chronology history of Ford and his family:

http://www.hfmgv.org/exhibits/hf/chrono.asp

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Ford Motor Company

Prior to Ford incorporating Ford Motor Company he along with other investors had tried to start up two other automobile companies. With the help of capital from William H. Murphy, Ford left his position at the Edison Company and created Detroit Automobile Company which was incorporated August 5, 1899. This had a short life which only lasted two years because the automobiles that were being produced were low quality and had a high price. Ford did not approve of the cheap automobiles and high prices of those cars so the company was dissolved in 1901.

Then later in 1901 Ford along with C. Harold Wills built and successfully raced a 26-horsepower automobile.  After the automobile did very well at the race it caught the attention of the investors including Murphy from Detroit Automobile Company. Due to the success of Ford’s race care, Ford and other investors, including Murphy, created Henry Ford Company in November 1901. Ford took on the position of Chief Engineer at the Henry Ford Company but Murphy brought on a engineer consultant to assist Ford. Henry Ford was very insulted with the action and he actually left Henry Ford Company. After Ford left Murphy changed to name from Henry Ford Company to Cadillac Automobile Company.

After leaving Henry Ford Company, Ford built more race cars which helped Barney Oldfield win races in 1902. After he continuing success in the race car world, Ford began talking with an old friend, Alexander Malcomson, who was a coal dealer in Detroit. After much talking, Ford and Malcomson formed Ford & Malcomson, Ltd. Right away Ford went to work on creating inexpensive automobiles that the average American could afford. Then Company would lease factory space and got a contract with the Dodge brothers to supply the Company $160,000 in parts to get the company started. The sales were slow and then the Doge Brothers wanted their first payment but the Company did not have enough money to pay them.

To help fix this problem Malcomson contacted some more investors and convinced the Doge Brothers to accept a share of a new company. In 1903 the new company was formed and that new company would become one of the largest auto manufacturer in the world and we know them as Ford Motor Company. It was started with just $28,000 of capital and as of 2006 Ford is now worth over 10 billion dollars.

Then Ford’s dream of creating an automobile that could possibly be available to any average American became a reality in 1908 with the introduction of the Model T.

Ford had created a car that was being produced but at a cost of $850 (about $21,300 today) most Americans could not afford this. Ford understood that in order to achieve his goal is making cars affordability to any American he had to the cost and thus increasing productivity. The Model T continued production until 1927 and had a final total production of 15,007,034 cars and the cost go as low as $360 (about $7,000 today) In order to achieve his goal Ford created the first mass production assembly line.

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 The Assembly Line

In 1913, the first moving assembly line at Ford’s Highland Park factory was installed.

Ford’s idea of the assembly line came from meat packing plants from the 19th century. At these plants cows and pigs were slaughtered, dressed, and packed using overhead trolleys that took the meat from worker to worker. At the Highland Park factory ford divided building the Model T into 29 operations performed by 29 men and the 29 men were lined up along a moving belt. After implementing this assembly line the time it took to build a Model T went from 12.5 hours to 6 hours and then another year later with even more assembly line improvements the time was decrease to just 93 man-minutes.

The last major improvement to the assembly line occurred October 7, 1913 where the Model T motor, chassis, and transmission were added to the moving assembly line and now all major components of the Model T were on the moving assembly line.

With the increase productive at Ford’s factory the Model T priced dropped from $850 down to $360 by 1916 which allowed the sales to triple compared to the 1912 levels. With such a huge sales growth and average Americans now able to buy cars the Model T accounted for nearly half of all automobiles sold in the world through 1927.

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The Impact of the Assembly Line

The invention of the assembly line would change the world any many ways. For one, by making automobiles for a low cost it allowed Ford to pass that savings on to the consumers. Prior to the assembly line cars were very costly and not many Americans could afford them but after the assembly line the cost decrease dramatically and now an average American was able to afford a automobile.

The next impact is that the assembly line was adopted by other industries and this helped decreased the cost of other goods for consumers. Everything from steel working to furniture factories adopted the assembly line and this savings would be passed on to the consumers.

Also, since the automobile was not affordable and the prices of automobiles decrease dramatically  the sales of automobiles sky rocketed. This allowed Ford to hire many employees due to the high demand for his product. Ford built at the time the world’s largest industrial complex, the Rough River Plant. This complex included everything needed for automobile production. This included a steel mill, glass factory and automobile assembly line. By late 1927 all steps of the manufacturing process from refining raw materials to final assembly of the automobiles was done at the Rouge River plant. Just to give you a little prospective on how big this plant was it had a total floor space of about 7 million square feet and at capacity it employed 81,000 people.

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Conclusion: Ford’s Legacy Lives On

In conclusion, not only had Henry Ford created one of the largest auto manufacturing companies in the world he also changed everyone’s live. Ford was the first person to make automobiles available to the average consumer and not just an item that only the super rich could afford.

Also, with his invention of the assembly line it allowed other industries to adopt this idea and decrease their production costs. This allowed the average american the ability to live a better live and be able to afford more than they would have without an assembly line. Also, Ford did pay his employees very well for the time and by doing that those employees were able to have a better living.

No matter how you look at it Henry Ford changed a lot of peoples live in the early 1900s and continues to help this world even today. His legacy will always live on due to the huge impact that he caused on almost every industry in the world.

A side note if you have not been to the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, MI, I would highly recommend that you make a trip out to see it. It is a very fun place to see just how far automobiles have come over the years and how much of an impact Ford really had.

Sources:

http://www.hfmgv.org/exhibits/hf/#childhood

http://www.youtube.com

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/moving-assembly-line-at-ford

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/entries/dt13as.html

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,989769,00.html

http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventors/ford.htm