Talk:Assembly line

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Interchangeable parts

Assembly lines and interchangeable parts are different concepts. An assembly line is a way of making things in which the operations are arranged sequentially and each operation in the line does part of the work. This allows each operation to specialize. See "division of labor" and Adam Smith. Henry Ford did not invent the assembly line. He invented the *moving* assembly line in which conveyors brought the work to the operators. Interchangeable parts are parts that are sufficiently alike that any one picked from a bin, for example, can be used essentially as is. It can be put in the assembly quickly and easily and it will work. The operator does not have to try different ones until a suitable one is found, and the part does not have to be modified in order to make it work. It is not necessary that parts be interchangeable in order that the assembly process be divided into a series of separate sequential operations. Before it was possible to make parts accurately enough that they were interchangeable, expert operators called "fitters" made the necessary adjustments before assembling them. Henry Ford realized that mass production was impossible if every part had to be adjusted manually by experts because a) there were not enough experts, and b) it took too long to do the adjustments. Similarly, it is not necessary that operations with interchangeable parts be arranged in a sequential line. One person can assemble them all. This was the way Volvo made cars in several factories in the 1970s and 80s and the way Ford did it before he developed the moving assembly line. A good book on this subject is Hounshell, D. (1985): "From the American System to Mass Production, 1800-1932: The development of manufacturing technology in the United States." Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.

I second the comments above. Hounshell is excellent, and assembly line and interchangeable parts are different concepts. I only wish the earlier commenter had signed his comment (ahem!) Ehusman 03:58, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Matthew Boulton

It is mentioned in the Soho Manufactory article that there was an assembly line there, which would surely have been before Isambard Kingdom Brunel. In fact this article seems to be very sketchy indeed on the long history of the assembly line prior to Ford.

A good day's pay

The assembly line allegedly caused so much turnover, Ford had to double wages (to $5/day in 1914) to retain workers, as well as cut the workday (10hr to 8); coincidentally, the pay increase (says Georgano) also boosted sales... By 1925, companies had to have assembly lines or risk going broke. Trekphiler 04:13, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Olds patent on assembly line

After a great deal of searching, I was unable to obtain no evidence of an Olds patent on the assembly line. While Olds and Olds Motor Works held a number of automobile related patents, it appears that an assembly line patent may not be among them (although many sources mention Olds use/invention of the assembly line to produce the Curved Dash Olds, which is still well in advance of Ford's adoption in 1913). It would be very helpful if an expert could weigh in with evidence around this topic.