Ford

The Ford Motor Company (often referred to as Ford; sometimes nicknamed FoMoCo), NYSE: F is a multinational corporation that manufactures automobiles. more...

The automaker was founded by Henry Ford in Dearborn, Michigan, United States (where the company is currently headquartered), and incorporated on June 16, 1903. In its 20th century heyday, Ford, along with General Motors and Chrysler, were known as Detroit's "Big Three" automakers, companies that dominated the American auto market. Toyota surpassed Ford in revenue starting in 2004. Ford remains one of the world's ten largest corporations by revenue.

Ford introduced methods for large-scale manufacturing of cars, and large-scale management of an industrial workforce. Ford implemented the ideas of Eli Whitney, who developed one of the first assembly lines using interchangeable parts, which made it possible to put the cars together at a much lower cost and with greater reliability and repeatability. The use of a chain-driven track to move the vehicles to the workers was unique in the industry and quickly became the preferred method for volume production. As the individual work tasks became simple and repetitive this allowed the use of unskilled laborers who could be quickly trained for a single task (though it also removed most of the satisfaction that a worker performing multiple tasks may enjoy).

Early History

Ford was launched from a converted wagon factory, with $28,000 cash from twelve investors. During its early years, the company produced just a few cars a day at the Ford factory on Mack Avenue in Detroit. Groups of two or three men worked on each car from components made to order by other companies.

In 1908, the Ford company released the Ford Model T. The first Model Ts were built at the Piquette Plant. The company was forced to move production to the much larger Highland Park Plant to keep up with the demand for the Model T, and by 1913 had developed all of the basic techniques of the assembly line and mass production. Ford introduced the world's first moving assembly line on December 1 that year, which reduced chassis assembly time from 12½ hours in October to 2 hours, 40 minutes. However these innovations were not popular, and in order to stop the staff deserting the monotonous jobs, on January 5, 1914, Ford took the radical step of doubling pay to $5 a day, and cut shifts from nine hours to an eight hour day — moves that were not popular with rival companies, although seeing the increase in Ford's productivity, most soon followed suit.

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