Ford Installs Assembly Line: Cars Become Affordable
Ford engineers rigged a rope-and-winch system at the Highland Park plant on October 7, 1913, dragging a Model T chassis past 140 workers who each added one component. Assembly time dropped from 12 hours 28 minutes to 93 minutes. Within a year, Ford refined the process with a mechanized belt and cut the time to 24 seconds per car. The moving assembly line wasn't invented from nothing. Meatpacking plants in Cincinnati and Chicago had used overhead conveyor systems for decades, disassembling carcasses as they moved past stationary workers. Ford reversed the idea: instead of taking apart, he put together. By 1914, Ford produced more cars than all other manufacturers combined. The $5 daily wage he introduced the same year wasn't generosity; it was the minimum needed to stop the brutal 370% annual turnover.
October 7, 1913
113 years ago
Key Figures & Places
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