• The factory system
• The American System of Manufacture
• The Assembly Line and Scientific Management (today)
• Automation
• flexible production, just-in-time, mass customization , and other trends away from traditional mass production

• Once the American System of Manufacture had speeded up the making of individual parts, the next critical problem was the assembly process
• prehistory--the most often cited example is in hog butchering (a disassembly line)
• In 1906 Henry Ford recognized the potential market for a light, powerful, low-cost car, and demand for the Model-T quickly outstripped supply when production started in 1908 (more about this later in the unit on the automobile)
• Ford built a new factory with craneways between buildings and sequentially arranged special-purpose machine tools (and hand trucks)
• Seeking to take this a step further Ford decided to try a moving conveyor belt, first for magnetos in 1913, then all over the plant by 1915.  Reduced assembly time from 12 1/2 man-hours to 5 5/6.
• The economies of scale for the model-T were overwhelming--lasted until 1927, some 15 million were built.

 Ford's River Rouge Plant

• Frederick Winslow Taylor --proper Philadelphian who went to work for a machine shop with the idea of working his way to the top.
• he was appalled by how inefficient the workers were and set out to rationalize them.
• In 1895 he introduced the differential piece rate--you got a lower rate if you worked slower.
• Taylor wanted not just to reward the worker but to tell him how to do the job--time studies. Also introduced high speed tool steel and patented improved metal cutting machines.  (Taylor's classic book is available on the web at:  The Principles of Scientific Management )
• Frank B. Gilbreth , who joined Taylor in 1907, extended this to motion study--watching how the worker moved and showing him how to eliminate waste motion
• his partner and wife, Lillian Gilbreth , realized that worker resistance was still a key issue and pioneered industrial psychology (they also had 12 children and raised them efficiently, as chronicled in Cheaper by the Dozen)
• Scientific management was applied to skilled workers, not just workers on assembly lines

 a machine used today in evaluation of workers

• Ford's workers were initially not happy with the assembly line initially--turnover reached 380%
• Starting in 1914 Ford paid twice the going wage, and found people eager to work under those terms
• Taylor thought his system would help workers, but they hated the lack of control, and in some cases went out on strike against time study (such political agitation that in 1915 Congress outlawed Taylorism at government arsenals)
• skilled workers were loosing their position to unskilled workers with machines:
• Cowan gives the example of carpenters using factory-made components
• new office machines revolutionized the office work force--in 1870 men made up 97.5% of the clerical labor force.  But typewriting became a women's job .  By 1890 women were 21% of clerical labor force, by 1920 50%.  Some even argued that women were better with machines than men.  

• Pride in work (my list is based on Cowan p. 187):
• relatively high wages
• work that is not mind-numbingly repetitive
• some control over daily schedule
• some control over quantity and quality of what is produced
• some job security because of time it would take to train a replacement

There were other people besides workers who had doubts:

• World War I showed the dangers of more efficient weapons.
• The conservation movement worried that we would run out of resources.
• some people in the 1920s feared that traditional values were being lost, which is why the first major protests over the teaching of Darwin happened then (see  Scopes Monkey Trial )
• The Great Depression of the 1930s made those doubts a lot more common, because a lot of the problem was overproduction.