Henry Ford doesn't want to make this kind of car. From the beginning, he was determined to build a car that ordinary people could afford. His interest lies in helping people like him, especially farmers, solve traffic problems. He feels that his relatives are all farmers and ordinary people. If he can live a comfortable life, he will be sincerely happy, and the secret of doing this is mass production.
In order to realize his long-cherished wish, Ford had to do two things in his own company. One is to design a simple and durable car that even farmers can drive without flashy decoration. This is 1908, the model T that made Ford's career take off. Model T is a delicate and simple machine. If there is a problem, ordinary car owners can eliminate and repair it. At that time, most roads in the United States were unreformed wagon dirt roads, luxury cars were discouraged, and Model T cars were unimpeded.
The second thing is to put Model T into mass production, which can greatly reduce the cost of Model T and make it affordable for ordinary people, especially farmers.
So Ford bought the land in Highland Park. Here, he applied the most modern production theory, especially Winslow Taylor's theory, and absolutely rationalized the industrial production process. This theory is to divide each job into smaller units, so that each unit can realize mechanization, improve speed, and finally merge into a production line. From parts to components to finished products, gradually from small to large. Here, continuity is above everything else.
19 13, the production process started to run according to Taylor theory. The first component installed on the modern assembly line is the magneto coil component. Before, a worker made a flywheel magneto from beginning to end. He must be a skilled worker, and a capable worker can complete 35 to 40 sets a day. Now there is a magneto assembly line, which is divided into 29 processes and operated by 29 people. It takes 20 minutes to make a magnetoelectric machine in the old way, but now it only takes 13 minutes.
Ford and his people soon carried out the same work in other departments of the factory and soon implemented similar methods in the assembly of engines and gearboxes. Then, in the summer of 19 13, they began to grasp the final assembly, which became a weak link because other technological processes were accelerated. In the past, workers worked nervously around a fixed metal object-the car they were assembling. If you tell people not to move, let the semi-finished car move on the production line and pass in front of the workers, the workers can waste less time.
1914 65438+1October, Ford installed the first automatic conveyor belt. He said that this is the first automatic line used by industrial enterprises, and it is modeled after the overhead conveyor belt for transporting beef in Chicago slaughterhouse. After adopting this innovation, it took Ford only 93 minutes to assemble a car in just a few months. However, when he first produced Model T, it took 1.25 hours to build a car. What a great achievement!
To celebrate this victory, the senior managers of Ford held a banquet at the Pontchartrain Hotel in Detroit. They installed a simple conveyor belt, driven by a 5 horsepower engine and a bicycle chain, to transport meals around the table. This fully represents Ford's early spirit and the friendship and trust between colleagues.
Ford is still not satisfied with what he has achieved. His ideal is to produce a car every minute. It took him only 12 years to achieve this goal, and in the following five years, that is, 1925, he could produce a car every 10 second. His name is not only a symbol of some cars, but also a symbol of a way of life. There is even a verb "Fordism", which means to standardize products, streamline them and produce them in large quantities, so as to make the prices affordable to ordinary people.
At a board meeting at the beginning of Model T production, Ford once said: Every time I reduce the car price by $65,438+0, I will add 65,438+0,000 new buyers. So he drastically reduces the price every year. 1910 ~191780 dollars per vehicle, 690 dollars in the second year, and then reduced to 600 dollars and 500 dollars. On the eve of World War I, it dropped to $360, and Ford sold 73,0041car at this price. At that time, his car output exceeded that of any car company in the world.
The purpose of Ford's doing this is to pursue a huge market scale, not to maximize the profit per car. Sixty years later, the Japanese did the same. Few people understood it in his time.
One year, his advertising plan gave him a new slogan: "Buy a Model T-save the price difference." He quickly changed it to: "buy a car-the extra difference can be spent." In this way, a modern industrial period-an industrial period in which ordinary people benefited more than they were exploited-began with model T.
At that time, the steel-making, petroleum, electrical, financial and automobile industries in the United States were prosperous, social workers were fully employed, and cheap and convenient energy made Volkswagen penetrate into every family and even every member. People fully enjoy the fast-paced modern life brought by Model T.
Fett, as the head of an ordinary family, just had breakfast cooked by his wife at the family table. Soon, he was dressed up and drove his dear son to the school near his home in a T-car. He himself, relying on the speed of Model T, arrived at the workplace in another state in just over half an hour.
When recalling life before the car, Fett complained that it was often like this. Before he arrived at his work place, his physical strength had been consumed by half, which was the result of catching trains and reversing buses in Daiyue every day. He said that he usually doesn't care about things at home, and holidays can only be a day of physical recovery. However, after having a car and working, he can send his children to school, buy things for his family, take his family to go on road trip on holidays and have a holiday.
Fett looked at his beloved Model T and said affectionately, "Mr. Ford not only made us own cars like the rich, but also made a fundamental breakthrough in our lifestyle."
From the life changes of an ordinary American citizen Fett, people can see that the best-selling Model T is not only the success of a Ford company, but the beginning of a social revolution.