Assembly Line – One of The Most Significant Technological Advancements of The Last Century

Arthur Erickson once said, “With production alone as the goal, industry in North America was dominated by the assembly line, standardization for mass consumption. ” Assembly lines are arguably one of the greatest inventions of the 20th century. As the assembly line was instituted, it changed the manufacturing business forever. Assembly lines had an everlasting effect on the entire world as a whole. For instance, the assembly line is still around today and used quite frequently worldwide. The reasoning behind it is very simple, it is the most efficient thing the world has ever seen. Not only was the assembly line efficient, it was also beneficial for everyone who was involved. Of course, it provided civilians with many job opportunities as it requires a tremendous amount of people to run. Due to the fact that the assembly line needed a large amount of people to run it, that means more people were getting paid and product rates were at an all-time high. Therefore, the assembly line was everything someone could have hoped for and that is why the assembly line is the most significant technological advancement of the 20th century.

A major key for assembly lines is efficiency. All large manufacturing projects, such as this one, efficiency is the key behind what keeps it successful and, keeps the cost down. If an Cameron 2 assembly line for some reason is too slow on a particular day, it will easily cost your business money out of their pocket. For example, any given assembly line has a goal for each and every day they are in business. If the goal for one day is to make 500 cars and they are short it will cost them. The owner or manufacturer is paying each and every one of the workers to hit that goal each day. Of course, if the goal is not achieved that would mean the workers are getting paid more than they should. Overall, making the business lose money. With the loss of money, over time, the build-up can and will eventually cause them to go out of business. Thus, making it so important to hit the goal and be as efficient as possible each day. When an assembly line is at its best and hitting targets, and even surpassing them, that’s when they are at their best. To make money, your assembly line must be on a roll at all times. When production and quality are both at an all-time high, that’s when business benefits most. Production rates just continue to climb each year. Whether it be from assembly lines adding in a new automatic job that will take away two old ones to speed up the process. Also, it could be because of finding an item on the product being made that does not have to be there any longer. Which is why assembly lines are so efficient. Imagine if you put one man on an assembly line or told one man to build a car. How long would it take him to build the car from scratch? Also, you have to take into consideration that he is not specialized in every single area of the assembly line, even if he was it would take mass amounts of time just to specialize in every area. The production rate of one man alone would most likely be a few days just to manufacture one car. Certainly, this is why the assembly line was created. The productivity needed to be better than what it was and continues today to Cameron 3 get better. This being why, every day, manufacturers continue to make assembly lines better, making the assembly line one of the greatest advancements of its kind.

Similarly to efficiency, specializing in an area allows for the assembly line to be just as productive, and even increase the efficiency. Due to the countless amounts of jobs needed for an assembly line to function, each person on that assembly line will be able to master their specific job. When each person masters their job, that will increase the productivity by a tremendous amount. When each person is at their very best and at their assigned spot they have mastered, that is the day when they exceed the car goal and make money. While on the topic of money, businesses who use assembly lines do indeed make a lot. Although, that was not always the case. Similarly, with the product rates, those were also a lot lower. To begin with, product rates were much slower than they are now. Before the first assembly line was ever made by Henry Ford, each car they made would take them roughly twelve hours to totally complete.

Of course, with the help of the assembly line that time was reduced. As the time went from twelve hours to a shocking, approximation of two hours and thirty minutes. The assembly line was much cheaper, efficient, and less time consuming. A lot of companies desire those three things with whatever they do. Henry Ford got all of those three things with one manufacturing invention. Thus, being why it is arguably one of the greatest inventions of all time. Furthermore, if people continue to find ways to better the assembly lines, there is no telling what they will be able to accomplish with them. As every car is made up of about thirty thousand parts and can be made in a few hours.

A car takes roughly twenty hours to build from Cameron 4 top to bottom. If engineers can figure out more and more ways to lighten the car and maybe remove a few parts off of it, this will lower the production time. As the production time is lower it will minimize the cost. Of course, with less parts it will also minimize the cost it takes to build the entire car. Additionally, as the time it takes to create the car is lowered, that will mean that they will be able to make more cars each day depending on what the car goal is. Likewise, the more cars created, the less money it will be to put them out on the market, and the more money they will make overall.

Closely related to the production of assembly lines, we have the failure of them. Imagine what life and technology would be like without them. If the first assembly line failed it the idea just got totally removed from the world, how would life be? The answer is extremely different to say the least. As today, most things we use in our daily lives come from assembly lines. Whether it be from things like cars, or furniture. The variety of items is endless. Therefore, without the many key items made from today’s assembly lines, who knows what life would be like. Technological advancements such as new cars would be nothing like they are today. Without the production of the assembly line, most cars would still be similar to the Model T or even hand made by some people as they would have no other way. Although, one may think these changes are small, it would have a large impact on our lives.

Transportation would no longer be the same as cars wouldn’t be as fast. Or, for the people who cannot drive they most likely would not be able to take the bus either. Without methods of transportation like vehicles, some wouldn’t be able to attend important functions like education if the distance Cameron 5 of travel was great enough. One minor thing could change our lives forever. With the assembly line, we are able to take most products like beds, cars, and more for granted. What everyone fails to realize is that it is all due to assembly lines. Without them, we would not have most of the things we do today in the quantities we have them in. If we only had few cars or few beds for example, the world would go crazy over them. With only few amounts of cars and beds, imagine the prices people would sell them for. Today the average bed goes for roughly two hundred dollars, without the assembly line beds would go for some crazy, unimaginable amount like a few thousand dollars. This being why assembly lines are one of the greatest advancements of the 20th century. Without you even knowing it, the assembly line has impacted your life in one way or another. Whether it be from saving you money, or from giving you something to sleep on at night.

Assembly lines were arguably one of the greatest inventions in the 20th century. As the assembly line has brought many good things into this world that we use in our daily lives, it is unlikely for someone to say otherwise. Nearly everything we use we would not have in the great amounts we do today, such as cars. Cars are things we need daily, without them most people would struggle in their daily lives. For example, the travelling aspect of life. Also, cars would of course be much more expensive than they are now with the acute amounts that we would produce without the assembly lines. Every industrial business in the world is doing extremely well when referring to their production of cars. The more cars they put out, the more money they are making. Similar to the domino effect, one doesn’t fall without the other. As the Cameron 6 cost continues to drop for vehicles, we all have assembly lines to thank for it.

Of course, the more vehicles assembly lines put out, the less expensive they will be. Engineers of today are still working on ways to improve assembly lines. Mostly on the production rates. Not only do assembly lines reduce prices of cars, but also more everyday items like beds. Due to the fact that assembly lines are so underrated, people don’t even realize how much they put out for us every day. The assembly line was for a fact, the greatest technological advancement of the 20th century.