The Assembly Line

When the first “horseless carriages” were introduced, few people were interested. Many people thought they were unsafe, too expensive, and too noisy. These horseless carriages were actually the beginnings of the car as we know it. The invention of cars changed transportation in the United States forever. Henry Ford is credited with changing the way that people looked at cars. He was one of the early automobile makers, and his techniques changed the way cars were made. His ideas made the car cheaper and accessible not only to rich people, but also to farmers and ordinary workers.

In the beginning cars were made by a group of mechanics working to put the entire car together. Henry Ford had different ideas on how to build an automobile. Henry Ford divided up the tasks into a process of steps. Each worker was assigned a different step in the process. That meant that each worker was only responsible for one job and he or she did this job over and over on each automobile. This meant that the workers became specialists. This also meant that cars would be produced much faster. This also meant the car was less expensive, so that it could be sold more cheaply.

Ford improved upon his system even more by introducing the assembly line. The assembly line was a large moving belt that brought the cars to the workers. The worker would continue to perform each step in the process, but bringing the cars to the workers saved even more time.