The Highland Park Ford Plant is a former

Ford Motor Company Ford Motor Company (commonly known as Ford) is an American multinational automobile manufacturer headquartered in Dearborn, Michigan, United States. It was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. The company sells automobi ...

factory located at 91 Manchester Avenue (at Woodward Avenue) in Highland Park,

Michigan Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the ...

. It was the second American production facility for the

Model T The Ford Model T is an automobile that was produced by Ford Motor Company from October 1, 1908, to May 26, 1927. It is generally regarded as the first affordable automobile, which made car travel available to middle-class Americans. The relati ...

automobile and the first factory in history to assemble cars on a moving

assembly line An assembly line is a manufacturing process (often called a ''progressive assembly'') in which parts (usually interchangeable parts) are added as the semi-finished assembly moves from workstation to workstation where the parts are added in seq ...

. It became a

National Historic Landmark A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the United States government for its outstanding historical significance. Only some 2,500 (~3%) of over 90,000 places listed ...

in 1978.

History

The Highland Park Ford Plant was designed by

Albert Kahn Associates Albert Kahn Associates is an architectural design firm in Detroit, Michigan with a second office located in Miami, Florida. It was established in 1895 and is still active. Recent work includes being awarded third place in thVirtual Modeling ...

in 1908 and was opened in 1910. Ford automotive production had previously taken place at the

Ford Piquette Avenue Plant The Ford Piquette Avenue Plant is a former factory located within the Milwaukee Junction area of Detroit, Michigan, in the United States. Built in 1904, it was the second center of automobile production for the Ford Motor Company, after the Fo ...

, where the first Model Ts were built. The Highland Park Ford Plant was approximately northwest of the original Dodge Brothers factory who were subcontractors for Ford, producing precision engine and chassis components for the Model T. It was also approximately northwest of the former

Brush A brush is a common tool with bristles, wire or other filaments. It generally consists of a handle or block to which filaments are affixed in either a parallel or perpendicular orientation, depending on the way the brush is to be gripped durin ...

- Maxwell plant, which later became

Highland Park Chrysler Plant The Highland Park Chrysler Plant, located in Detroit, was the original headquarters campus of the Chrysler, Chrysler Corporation, which was originally the Brush Motor Car Company factory location until through a series of acquisitions, became the ...

the headquarters for the

Chrysler Corporation Stellantis North America (officially FCA US and formerly Chrysler ()) is one of the " Big Three" automobile manufacturers in the United States, headquartered in Auburn Hills, Michigan. It is the American subsidiary of the multinational automoti ...

. The complex included offices, factories, a power plant and a foundry as part of Ford's strategy of integrating the

supply chain In commerce, a supply chain is a network of facilities that procure raw materials, transform them into intermediate goods and then final products to customers through a distribution system. It refers to the network of organizations, people, acti ...

. About 102 acres in size the Highland Park Plant was the largest manufacturing facility in the world at the time of its opening. Because of its spacious design, it set the precedent for many factories and production plants built thereafter. Using

division of labor The division of labour is the separation of the tasks in any economic system or organisation so that participants may specialise (specialisation). Individuals, organizations, and nations are endowed with, or acquire specialised capabilities, and ...

, relentless cost-cutting and process optimization, the factory went through an experience curve to reduce price and increase volume. On October 7, 1913, the Highland Park Ford Plant became the first

automobile A car or automobile is a motor vehicle with Wheel, wheels. Most definitions of ''cars'' say that they run primarily on roads, Car seat, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport private transport#Personal transport, pe ...

production facility in the world to implement the moving assembly line. The new assembly line improved production time of the Model T from 728 to 93 minutes. The Highland Park assembly line lowered the price of the Model T from $700 () in 1910 to $350 () in 1917, making it an affordable automobile for most Americans. On January 5, 1914, Ford announced that factory wages would be raised from a daily rate of $2.34 () to $5.00 (), and that daily shifts would be reduced from nine hours to eight. After the increase in pay, Ford claimed that the turnover rate of 31.9 percent in 1913 decreased to 1.4 percent in 1915. Ford offered nearly three times the wages paid at other unskilled manufacturing plants. In the late 1920s, the open Model T went out of fashion and Ford moved automobile assembly to the River Rouge Plant complex in nearby Dearborn to focus on improving quality with the Model A. Automotive trim manufacturing and

Fordson Fordson was a brand name of tractors and trucks. It was used on a range of mass-produced general-purpose tractors manufactured by Henry Ford & Son Inc from 1917 to 1920, by Ford Motor Company (U.S.) and Ford Motor Company Ltd (U.K.) from 1920 to ...

tractor assembly continued at the Highland Park plant. The 1,690 M4A3 Sherman tanks built by Ford from June, 1942 to September, 1943 were assembled in this factory, as well. During the 1940s through 1960s, the Highland Park plant was a principal location for Ford U.S. tractor manufacture. In the 1970s, the Romeo, Michigan, plant increasingly displaced it for that role. By the mid-1990s neither plant was producing tractors or tractor parts, as Ford had sold off its tractor and implement interests in stages during the 1990-1993 period. By 2011 it was being used by Ford Motor Company to store documents and for artifact storage for the

Henry Ford Museum The Henry Ford (also known as the Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation and Greenfield Village, and as the Edison Institute) is a history museum complex in the Detroit suburb of Dearborn, Michigan, United States. The museum collection contains ...

. A portion is also occupied by a

Forman Mills Forman Mills, Inc. is a Pennsauken, New Jersey-based retail chain and department store with 44 stores. They also operate a store at the Iverson Mall in Hillcrest Heights, Maryland. It was begun by Richard Forman when he started selling items a ...

clothing warehouse that opened in 2006.

Current status

The Woodward Avenue Action Association has a purchase agreement with the complex's owner, National Equity Corp., to pay $550,000 for two of eight buildings at the historic Ford manufacturing complex: a four-floor, 40,000-square-foot administration building and the 8,000-square-foot executive garage near it. The center would include a theater with continuous videos, informational kiosks, interpretive displays on automotive history and a gift/coffee/snack shop. It could also be a place where visitors could pick up historical automotive tours, such as the current tour offered by the Woodward group, "In the Steps of Henry".

In the media

The plant was used as a location for director

Shawn Levy Shawn Adam Levy (born July 23, 1968) is a Canadian film director, film producer, actor, and founder of 21 Laps Entertainment. He has worked across genres and is perhaps best known as the director of the '' Night at the Museum'' film franchise an ...

's 2011

Disney The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on October ...

Touchstone Pictures Touchstone Pictures, Inc. was an American film production label of Walt Disney Studios, founded and owned by The Walt Disney Company. Feature films released under the Touchstone label were produced and financed by Walt Disney Studios, and featu ...

film ''

Real Steel ''Real Steel'' is a 2011 American science fiction sports drama film starring Hugh Jackman and Dakota Goyo and co-produced and directed by Shawn Levy for DreamWorks Pictures. The film is based on the short story "Steel", written by Richard Mathe ...

''.

Gallery

Image:Highland park plant 1.jpg, Highland Park Ford plant, c. 1922 Image:Highland park plant 2.jpg, Highland Park Ford plant, c. 1922 Image:Highland Park Ford plant.jpg Image:Highland Park Ford Plant south side.jpg, South side streetscape of the Highland Park Ford plant complex Image:Highland park plant complex.jpg, Large building that is part of the Ford plant complex (now the Highland Park Industrial Center)

References

External links