Ford and Taylor Scientific Management (Edited)

This is a 7 min. video on Ford and Taylor Scientific Management.

>> In Britain, the Vulcan
Motor Company was proud

to film the way their
workers assembled cars,

slowly and carefully, by hand.

Craftsmen worked in their
own way, at their own pace.

The whole process took several
weeks from start to finish.

These hand made cars
were so expensive,

that a wide gulf separated
those who built them,

from those who bought them.

But the days when cars were
just luxuries for the rich,

were drawing to a close.

In 1908, one mans vision
would change manufacturing

and create a new market.

Henry Ford, set out to make the
simplest car ever [car horn] a car

for rural America, a
twentieth century equivalent

of the horse and buggy.

To produce the Model T
cheaply, Ford knew he had

to change the way cars were built.

That meant changing the
way his workers worked.

As he reorganized his
factory to turn out Model T's,

he was influenced by the
efficiency expert, Fredrick Taylor.

Taylor complained that
hardly a workman can be found

who doesn't devote his time

to studying just how
slowly he can work

and then he devoted his
life to speeding them up.

When Taylor was brought in,
he first timed the workers

with stop watches and
noted their every movement.

In a famous experiment
at an iron works,

he reorganized a worker
named Schmidt.

Previously, Schmidt had
hand carried 12 tons

of pig iron a day up from a wagon.

After Taylor rearranged things,

the tolerant Mr. Schmidt
found himself carrying 47 tons

and production had
been raised 300%.

Called into an office,

Taylor helped the world's
fastest typist, type even faster.

The new world record of 150
words a minute was achieved

by Margaret Owen and Taylor
claimed much of the credit.

At Fords factory, Taylorism meant
dividing automobile production

into simple repetitive steps.

There would be no need
for skilled craftsmen

with years of apprenticeship.

Men could learn to
do any job quickly.

A trained wheelwright, no longer
made each wheel in its entirety.

Wheel making was broken
down into almost 100 steps,

done by different men
at different machines.

It was much faster, but workers could
still complete only 200 cars a day

So, in 1913, Ford introduced his
most revolutionary change yet.

>> In those days, each car
was built from the frame

up on stationary wooden horses.

>> The Ford Motor Company
filmed a reenactment

of how Henry Ford first
tried out his new idea.

>> Henry Ford watched it for a
while and he had an inspiration.

Instead of moving the
men past the cars,

why not move the cars past the men?

So, on one hot August morning,
they tried it that way.

A husky young fellow put
a rope over his shoulder

and Henry Ford called let's go.

And at that very moment, as the
workmen began to fasten the parts

onto the slowly moving car,
the assembly line was born.

>> Soon assembly lines were up
and running in Fords factory.

The lines became the
key to mass production,

a system that would
remain virtually unchanged

for most of the century.

A network of timing conveyers
was used to deliver parts

to an exact point on the line.

The workers became an integral
part of the great machine

and management set the pace
without discussion or negotiation,

for unions were forbidden.

The men faced new pressure as
the final assembly line beat

out the rhythm for
the whole factory.

There was no way they
could stop or slow it down.

Few stood the pace and
[inaudible] for long.

Men tried it for a few weeks,
then quit, but Ford had an answer.

The company was making
record profits.

The time taken to build each
car had dropped to 1 1/2 hours,

so he could afford to raise pay.

When he announced he was doubling
wages to the unheard of level

of $5 a day, the factory was
besieged with applicants.

Other car makers adapted
the Ford method.

Ford's recipe, mass production,
low costs, high wages,

was creating not only cheap
cars, but well paid workers.

Above all, it was the constant
supply of new men arriving

into to Detroit that
made it possible.

The company set the
terms, if they worked fast

and obeyed orders,
they got the wages.

It was a game for which
Ford made the rules simple,

but strict, high pay for hard work.

>> What Mr. Ford wanted from
his workers was a good days work

on the shift, go home eat and go
to bed and you'd save your strength

and get up and give him
a good day the next day.

That was-- that just pops in
my mind and it is the truth.

>> Ford's private security force,

the Plant Protection
Service, kept discipline.

Anyone who recruited
for the union was fired.

Company spies kept a lookout

for those considered
to be trouble makers.

Workers on the Rouge lines
had never had job security.

Now those lucky enough still

to have jobs became
increasingly powerless.

>> You couldn't even
talk to guys on the job,

not let the foreman see you, there
was whispers going on and what not.

A friend of mine was fired 3 times, a guy
by the name of John Gallow, for smiling

If you went to the bathroom you had

to get permission
from your supervisor.

And if you were in there for 3
or 4 minutes, you would take one

of the service guys, if
you had to use the bathroom

to relieve your bowels,
he would come up

and put his foot before you
flush and he'd say stand up.

And when you stand up and
if there wasn't something

in the toilet, out you go.