The Roots of Lean?
The Extraordinary Vision of Henry Ford
By JAMIE FLINCHBAUGH / Partner, Lean Learning Center, Novi, MI TOM JACKSON / Principal, Caledonia Group Inc., Detroit
Many principles of lean manufacturing trace their roots to the man from Dearborn. Once in a great while, an industry makes a giant leap. In the rearview mirror of history, such leaps seem a combination of both genius and common sense. At the moment, however, a leap into the unknown looks more like the act of a madman. Business history is filled with many examples of this dichotomy, ranging from James Watt and the steam engine to Ted Turner, CNN and cable TV.
Perhaps the single most dramatic industry-changing moment in modern times was Henry Ford's revolutionary Model T and the moving assembly line. In fact, Fortune magazine named Ford one of its four "businessmen of the century" for those innovations. According to the Nov. 22, 1999, article, "When he founded Ford Motor Co., cars were fussy, unreliable and costly novelties. Ford's genius was to make them simple, solid and inexpensive necessities."
In retrospect, Ford's developments seem like natural next steps in the evolution of American business. Perhaps he was just first to complete a journey whose course was laid down by impersonal forces of history. Nevertheless, Ford made a major contribution to what we know today as lean manufacturing.
More than Just a Leap
If people told you they were going to change every aspect of their business and industry, you would probably think they were crazy. A century ago, people thought Ford was crazy. For instance, consider the following nugget of personal history.
In the early 1900s, Ford canvassed northern Indiana looking for investors in a risky new business: an automobile manufacturing company. Stopping briefly in Angola, IN, Ford approached the paternal grandfather of one of the authors of this article. The young Hoosier was interested in what Ford had to say, but was uncertain as to what to do. He consulted his father, who sagely counseled, "Son, put your money in land."
Let's dispel any notion that Ford's accomplishments were just the natural next steps for the automotive industry. Real estate was the future, not the new-fangled automobile. What Ford did was something more than anyone expected or could have believed was possible. A next step is usually thata step. Henry Ford did not just create a system for mass production. He changed radically and forever dozens of aspects of business, and all within 20 yearsa very short period of time.
Ford did not just borrow innovations already in place in other industries or his own (what we refer to today as benchmarking). He made changes that would thrust many industries forward, as if by a tidal wave. For example, Ford turned Midwestern farmers into assembly workers. Industrialists had tapped the farming community for labor before, but did not feel compelled to transform farmers into a skilled, coordinated workforce. Ford did, and it was no mean feat.
It is still a challenge today to find and develop people who can adapt to the unique jobs found on an automotive assembly linea combination of brutal repetition, constant pace and precision work at speed. Today, we have tools that make the job easier, such as automated alignment equipment, robotic fixtures and lightweight electric nutrunners.
Ford's transformation, a combination in today's terms of "innovative incentive structures" of paying workers $5 a day and "workforce development," gave him a workforce that without his vision would have come to a grinding halt. Outside of the established apprenticeship programs, virtually no companies had invested as much in building a capable and motivated workforce. 6 sigma training
Another example that illustrates Henry Ford's vision is factory design. At the turn of the last century, most factories were still built on the model that power is distributed through a combination of wheels, pulleys and gravity. While many adopted the electric dynamo, allowing single-storied factories, few had Ford's vision to rearrange factory layouts to facilitate more efficient movement of people and materials.
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