Henry Ford and Ford Motor Company Essay

Submitted By msuncr
Words: 2118
Pages: 9

1) STUDENT NUMBER: 1301111
2) THE MODULE NUMBER: IB123
3) THE DATE OF SUBMISSION: 19th January, 2014
4) THE WORD COUNT: 2033 words

Introduction
Henry Ford is an American automobile engineer and entrepreneur, who is also the founder of Ford Motor Company. In 1908, Ford led its Ford Motor Company to produce the world’s first car which belonged to the ordinary people--T car. Since then, the world’s automotive industry revolution began. Henry Ford also induced its management theory and style to change the traditional management style. He is also the world’s first people to adopt the assembly line to manufacture the cars in a large scale. The purpose of this essay is to analyze how Ford changes the organisational management and workplace practices. It also critically discusses how Ford continues to influence contemporary organizational behaviour.

Brief Overview about Henry Ford
Hery Ford was born 1863 to Irish immigrant farmers. “Ford became an engineer with the Edison Illuminating Company in 1891” (Marquis, 2007). Then he got his career promotion to become a chief engineer. Since then, Ford devoted attention on gasoline engines and in 1896 Ford successfully designed a self-propelled vehicle named the
Ford Quadricycle. In 1898, Ford resigned from Edison Illuminating Company and founded the first automobile company. Unfortunately, this company finally bankrupted in 1900 and it just produced only 25 cars. On June 16th 1903, Ford re-established the motor company and served as General Manager. In the same year,
Ford Motor Company manufactured the first car which is Ford brand. In 1908, Ford
Motor Company successfully produced Model T car, which was very popular and has good selling in Europe. Since then, Ford Motor Company developed rapidly. In the management field, Ford is also a greatest practitioner.

Discussion on How Ford Change the Organisational Management and
Workplace Practice
Ford has made many contributions to people. In the management field, there are two

typical inventions that Ford created, including moving assembly line and high salary system. These have affected the production style and organisational style of the entire human, which also change the basic appearance.

Firstly, the invention and introduction of the moving assembly line made control over the speed of work possible, which lays the foundation of large scale. The moving assembly line plays a vital role in the human development. Before Ford, the specialized division has greatly increased the labor productivity. However, Ford further improves and deepens the specialization division. He integrated the original dispersing production serials by design. Through the moving assembly line, on the one hand, it can decomposition the process in a further step and promote the specialization; on the other hand, it can integrate the dispersed production serials, which greatly improves the efficiency of the entire production process. At that time,
“other companies spent more than 700 hours assembling a car, while Ford’s assembly line only spent 12.5 hours” (Foust, 1997). This made “Model T car only sell $ 850, which is much lower than the average price” (Foust, 1997). After that, through continuous improvement, “the production speed of Model T car has enhanced to manufacture a car every 10 seconds, and the price dropped to $ 260” (Foust, 1997). It can be imagined that without the moving assembly line, the production efficiency cannot be enhanced. After Ford launched its assembly line, it is quickly applied to almost all of manufacture field.

The first assembly line was probably at the Venetian Arsenal & overhead conveyors already used in Chicago meat packing yards to assemble cattle. The principle of assembly line is to arrange the workers and the tools in accordance with procedures.
Under this circumstance, in the whole process to the finished products, each component will go through the shortest possible