Famous+Americans+Bio;+Henry+Ford

FAMOUS AMERICANS BIO; HENRY FORD

Henry Ford was the American founder of the [|Ford Motor Company] as well as the father of the assembly lines used in mass production. His introduction of the Model T automobile revolutionized the transportation industry, making getting from place to place easier and more affordable. As a prolific inventor, he was awarded 161 U.S. patents. His title as owner of the Ford Motor Company enabled him to become one of the richest and best-known people in the world. He is credited with the idea and term "Fordism", that is, the mass production of large numbers of inexpensive automobiles using the assembly line, coupled with high wages for his workers. Ford had a global vision, consumerism serving as the all-holding key to peace. Ford did not believe in accountants; he amassed one of the world's largest fortunes without ever having his company audited under his administration. Henry Ford's intense commitment to lowering costs resulted in many technical and business innovations, including a franchise system that put a dealership in every city in North America, and in major cities on six continents. Ford left most of his vast wealth to the Ford Foundation but arranged for his family to control the company permanently.



[|The Ford Model T] was an automobile that was produced by Henry Ford's Ford Motor Company from 1908 through 1927. The Model T set 1908 as the historic year that the automobile became popular. It is generally regarded as the first affordable automobile, the car that opened travel to the common middle-class American; some of this was because of Ford's innovations, including assembly line production instead of individual hand crafting, as well as the concept of paying the workers a wage acceptable to the cost of the car, so they would provide a ready made market. The first production Model T was produced on August 12, 1908 and left the factory on September 27, 1908, at the Piquette Plant in Detroit, Michigan. The Model T was the first automobile mass produced on assembly lines with completely interchangeable parts, marketed to the middle class. The Model T was a revolution in technological advancements for travel and transportation.

An [|assembly line] can be defined as the manufacturing process in which parts, usually considered interchangeable, are added to a product in a manner of sequences using optimally planned logistics to create a finished product much faster than with handcrafting-type methods. The assembly line developed by Ford Motor Company between 1908 and 1915 made assembly lines famous in the following decade through the social ramifications and benefits of mass production, such as the affordability of the Ford Model T and the introduction of high wages for Ford workers. Henry Ford was the first to master the assembly line and was able to improve other aspects of industry by doing so by reducing labor hours required to produce a single vehicle, and exhibiting an increased production of numbers and parts. However, the various ideas for the development at Ford stretched far back into the 19th century, from the gradual realization of the dream of interchangeability, to the concept of reinventing workflow and job descriptions using analytical methods. 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-cost for manufactured goods. It is often said that Ford's production system was ingenious because it turned Ford's own workers into new customers. Ford innovated its way to a lower price point and by doing so turned a huge potential market into a reality. Not only did this mean that Ford enjoyed much larger demand, but the resulting larger demand also allowed further economies of scale to be exploited, further depressing unit price, which tapped yet another portion of the demand curve. This bootstrapping quality of growth made Ford famous and set an example for other industries through the use of the beneficial process of the Assembly Line.