Westinghouse,
Mikhail Dolivo-Dobrovolsky
Mikhail Osipovich Dolivo-Dobrovolsky (russian: Михаи́л О́сипович Доли́во-Доброво́льский; german: Michail von Dolivo-Dobrowolsky or ''Michail Ossipowitsch Doliwo-Dobrowolski''; – ) was a Russian Empire ...
and others. Electrification of factories was fastest between 1900 and 1930, aided by the establishment of electric utilities with central stations and the lowering of electricity prices from 1914 to 1917.
Electric motors were several times more efficient than small steam engines because central station generation were more efficient than small steam engines and because
line shaft
A line shaft is a power-driven rotating shaft for power transmission that was used extensively from the Industrial Revolution until the early 20th century. Prior to the widespread use of electric motors small enough to be connected directly to e ...
s and belts had high friction losses. Electric motors also allowed more flexibility in manufacturing and required less maintenance than line shafts and belts. Many factories saw a 30% increase in output simply from changing over to electric motors.
Electrification enabled modern mass production, as with Thomas Edison's iron ore processing plant (about 1893) that could process 20,000 tons of ore per day with two shifts, each of five men. At that time it was still common to handle bulk materials with shovels, wheelbarrows and small narrow-gauge rail cars, and for comparison, a canal digger in previous decades typically handled five tons per 12-hour day.
The biggest impact of early mass production was in manufacturing everyday items, such as at the
Ball Brothers
The Ball brothers (Lucius, William, Edmund, Frank, and George) were five American industrialists and philanthropists who established a manufacturing business in New York and Indiana in the 1880s that was renamed the Ball Corporation in 1969. Th ...
Glass Manufacturing Company, which electrified its
mason jar
A Mason jar, also known as a canning jar or fruit jar, is a glass jar used in home canning to preserve food. It was named after American tinsmith John Landis Mason, who patented it in 1858. The jar's mouth has a screw thread on its outer perime ...
plant in
Muncie, Indiana, U.S., around 1900. The new automated process used glass-blowing machines to replace 210 craftsman glass blowers and helpers. A small electric truck was used to handle 150 dozen bottles at a time where previously a hand truck would carry six dozen. Electric mixers replaced men with shovels handling sand and other ingredients that were fed into the glass furnace. An electric overhead crane replaced 36
day labor
Day labor (or day labour in Commonwealth spelling) is work done where the worker is hired and paid one day at a time, with no promise that more work will be available in the future. It is a form of contingent work.
Types
Day laborers (also ...
ers for moving heavy loads across the factory.
According to
Henry Ford
Henry Ford (July 30, 1863 – April 7, 1947) was an American industrialist, business magnate, founder of the Ford Motor Company, and chief developer of the assembly line technique of mass production. By creating the first automobile that ...
:
The provision of a whole new system of electric generation emancipated industry from the leather belt and line shaft
A line shaft is a power-driven rotating shaft for power transmission that was used extensively from the Industrial Revolution until the early 20th century. Prior to the widespread use of electric motors small enough to be connected directly to e ...
, for it eventually became possible to provide each tool with its own electric motor. This may seem only a detail of minor importance. In fact, modern industry could not be carried out with the belt and line shaft for a number of reasons. The motor enabled machinery to be arranged in the order of the work, and that alone has probably doubled the efficiency of industry, for it has cut out a tremendous amount of useless handling and hauling. The belt and line shaft
A line shaft is a power-driven rotating shaft for power transmission that was used extensively from the Industrial Revolution until the early 20th century. Prior to the widespread use of electric motors small enough to be connected directly to e ...
were also tremendously wasteful – so wasteful indeed that no factory could be really large, for even the longest line shaft was small according to modern requirements. Also high speed tools were impossible under the old conditions – neither the pulleys nor the belts could stand modern speeds. Without high speed tools and the finer steels which they brought about, there could be nothing of what we call modern industry.
Mass production was popularized in the late 1910s and 1920s by Henry Ford's
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 ...
, which introduced electric motors to the then-well-known technique of chain or sequential production. Ford also bought or designed and built special purpose machine tools and fixtures such as multiple spindle
drill presses
A drill is a tool used for making round holes or driving fasteners. It is fitted with a bit, either a drill or driverchuck. Hand-operated types are dramatically decreasing in popularity and cordless battery-powered ones proliferating due to ...
that could drill every hole on one side of an engine block in one operation and a multiple head
milling machine
Milling is the process of machining using rotary cutters to remove material by advancing a cutter into a workpiece. This may be done by varying direction on one or several axes, cutter head speed, and pressure. Milling covers a wide variety of d ...
that could simultaneously machine 15 engine blocks held on a single fixture. All of these machine tools were arranged systematically in the production flow and some had special carriages for rolling heavy items into machining position. Production of the
Ford Model T used 32,000 machine tools.
Buildings
The process of prefabrication, wherein parts are created separately from the finished product, is at the core of all mass-produced construction. Early examples include movable structures reportedly utilized by
Akbar the Great, and the
chattel houses built by emancipated slaves on
Barbados
Barbados is an island country in the Lesser Antilles of the West Indies, in the Caribbean region of the Americas, and the most easterly of the Caribbean Islands. It occupies an area of and has a population of about 287,000 (2019 estimate) ...
. The
Nissen hut
A Nissen hut is a prefabricated steel structure for military use, especially as barracks, made from a half-cylindrical skin of Corrugated galvanised iron, corrugated iron. Designed during the First World War by the American-born, Canadian-British ...
, first used by the British during
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
, married prefabrication and mass production in a way that suited the needs of the military. The simple structures, which cost little and could be erected in just a couple of hours, were highly successful: over 100,000 Nissen huts were produced during World War I alone, and they would go on to serve in other conflicts and inspire a number of similar designs.
Following World War II, in the United States,
William Levitt
William Jaird Levitt (February 11, 1907 – January 28, 1994) was an American real-estate developer and housing pioneer. As president of Levitt & Sons, he is widely credited as the father of modern American suburbia. He was named one of ''Time ...
pioneered the building of standardized
tract house
Tract housing is a type of housing development in which multiple similar houses are built on a tract (area) of land that is subdivided into smaller lots. Tract housing developments are found in suburb developments that were modeled on the "Levi ...
s in 56 different locations around the country. These communities were dubbed
Levittown
Levittown is the name of several large suburban housing developments created in the United States (including one in Puerto Rico) by William J. Levitt and his company Levitt & Sons. Built after World War II for returning white veterans and their ...
s, and they were able to be constructed quickly and cheaply through the leveraging of
economies of scale
In microeconomics, economies of scale are the cost advantages that enterprises obtain due to their scale of operation, and are typically measured by the amount of output produced per unit of time. A decrease in cost per unit of output enables ...
, as well as the specialization of construction tasks in a process akin to an assembly line. This era also saw the invention of the
mobile home, a small prefabricated house that can be transported cheaply on a truck bed.
In the modern industrialization of construction, mass production is often used for prefabrication of house components.
The use of assembly lines
Mass production systems for items made of numerous parts are usually organized into
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 se ...
s. The assemblies pass by on a conveyor, or if they are heavy, hung from an
overhead crane
An overhead crane, commonly called a bridge crane, is a type of crane found in industrial environments. An overhead crane consists of two parallel rails seated on longitudinal I-beams attached to opposite steel columns by means of brackets. ...
or monorail.
In a factory for a complex product, rather than one assembly line, there may be many auxiliary assembly lines feeding sub-assemblies (i.e. car engines or seats) to a backbone "main" assembly line. A diagram of a typical mass-production factory looks more like the skeleton of a fish than a single line.
Vertical integration
Vertical integration
In microeconomics, management and international political economy, vertical integration is a term that describes the arrangement in which the supply chain of a company is integrated and owned by that company. Usually each member of the suppl ...
is a business practice that involves gaining complete control over a product's production, from raw materials to final assembly.
In the age of mass production, this caused shipping and trade problems in that shipping systems were unable to transport huge volumes of finished automobiles (in Henry Ford's case) without causing damage, and also government policies imposed trade barriers on finished units.
Ford built the
Ford River Rouge Complex with the idea of making the company's own iron and steel in the same large factory site where parts and car assembly took place. River Rouge also generated its own electricity.
Upstream vertical integration, such as to raw materials, is away from leading technology toward mature, low-return industries. Most companies chose to focus on their core business rather than vertical integration. This included buying parts from outside suppliers, who could often produce them as cheaply or cheaper.
Standard Oil, the major oil company in the 19th century, was vertically integrated partly because there was no demand for unrefined crude oil, but kerosene and some other products were in great demand. The other reason was that Standard Oil monopolized the oil industry. The major oil companies were, and many still are, vertically integrated, from production to refining and with their own retail stations, although some sold off their retail operations. Some oil companies also have chemical divisions.
Lumber and paper companies at one time owned most of their timber lands and sold some finished products such as corrugated boxes. The tendency has been to divest of timber lands to raise cash and to avoid property taxes.
Advantages and disadvantages
The economies of mass production come from several sources. The primary cause is a reduction of non-productive effort of all types. In
craft production
Craft production is manufacturing by hand, with or without the aid of tools. The term "craft production" describes manufacturing techniques that are used in handicraft trades. They were the common methods of manufacture in the pre-industrialized ...
, the craftsman must bustle about a shop, getting parts and assembling them. He must locate and use many tools many times for varying tasks. In mass production, each worker repeats one or a few related tasks that use the same tool to perform identical or near-identical operations on a stream of products. The exact tool and parts are always at hand, having been moved down the assembly line consecutively. The worker spends little or no time retrieving and/or preparing materials and tools, and so the time taken to manufacture a product using mass production is shorter than when using traditional methods.
The probability of
human error
Human error refers to something having been done that was " not intended by the actor; not desired by a set of rules or an external observer; or that led the task or system outside its acceptable limits".Senders, J.W. and Moray, N.P. (1991) Human ...
and variation is also reduced, as tasks are predominantly carried out by machinery; error in operating such machinery has more far-reaching consequences. A reduction in labour costs, as well as an increased rate of production, enables a company to produce a larger quantity of one product at a lower cost than using traditional, non-linear methods.
However, mass production is inflexible because it is difficult to alter a
design
A design is a plan or specification for the construction of an object or system or for the implementation of an activity or process or the result of that plan or specification in the form of a prototype, product, or process. The verb ''to design' ...
or
production
Production may refer to:
Economics and business
* Production (economics)
* Production, the act of manufacturing goods
* Production, in the outline of industrial organization, the act of making products (goods and services)
* Production as a stati ...
process after a
production line
A production line is a set of sequential operations established in a factory where components are assembled to make a finished article or where materials are put through a refining process to produce an end-product that is suitable for onward c ...
is implemented. Also, all products produced on one production line will be identical or very similar, and introducing variety to satisfy individual tastes is not easy. However, some variety can be achieved by applying different finishes and decorations at the end of the production line if necessary. The starter cost for the machinery can be expensive so the producer must be sure it sells or the producers will lose a lot of money.
The Ford Model T produced tremendous affordable output but was not very good at responding to demand for variety,
customization, or design changes. As a consequence Ford eventually lost market share to General Motors, who introduced annual model changes, more accessories and a choice of colors.
With each passing decade, engineers have found ways to increase the flexibility of mass production systems, driving down the
lead times on new product development and allowing greater customization and variety of products.
Compared with other production methods, mass production can create new
occupational hazard
An occupational hazard is a hazard experienced in the workplace. This encompasses many types of hazards, including chemical hazards, biological hazards (biohazards), psychosocial hazards, and physical hazards. In the United States, the Nation ...
s for workers. This is partly due to the need for workers to operate heavy machinery while also working close together with many other workers. Preventative safety measures, such as fire drills, as well as special training is therefore necessary to minimise the occurrence of
industrial accidents
A work accident, workplace accident, occupational accident, or accident at work is a "discrete occurrence in the course of work" leading to physical or mental occupational injury. According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), more tha ...
.
Socioeconomic impacts
In the 1830s, French political thinker and historian
Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis Charles Henri Clérel, comte de Tocqueville (; 29 July 180516 April 1859), colloquially known as Tocqueville (), was a French aristocrat, diplomat, political scientist, political philosopher and historian. He is best known for his wor ...
identified one of the key characteristics of America that would later make it so amenable to the development of mass production: the homogeneous consumer base. De Tocqueville wrote in his ''
Democracy in America
(; published in two volumes, the first in 1835 and the second in 1840) is a classic French text by Alexis de Tocqueville. Its title literally translates to ''On Democracy in America'', but official English translations are usually simply entitl ...
'' (1835) that "The absence in the United States of those vast accumulations of
wealth
Wealth is the abundance of valuable financial assets or physical possessions which can be converted into a form that can be used for transactions. This includes the core meaning as held in the originating Old English word , which is from an I ...
which favor the expenditures of large sums on articles of mere luxury... impact to the productions of American industry a character distinct from that of other countries' industries.
roduction is geared towardarticles suited to the wants of the whole people".
Mass production improved
productivity
Productivity is the efficiency of production of goods or services expressed by some measure. Measurements of productivity are often expressed as a ratio of an aggregate output to a single input or an aggregate input used in a production proces ...
, which was a contributing factor to economic growth and the decline in work week hours, alongside other factors such as transportation infrastructures (canals, railroads and highways) and agricultural mechanization. These factors caused the typical work week to decline from 70 hours in the early 19th century to 60 hours late in the century, then to 50 hours in the early 20th century and finally to 40 hours in the mid-1930s.
Mass production permitted great increases in total production. Using a European crafts system into the late 19th century it was difficult to meet demand for products such as sewing machines and animal powered mechanical
harvesters
Harvester may refer to:
Agriculture and forestry
* Combine harvester, a machine commonly used to harvest grain crops
* Forage harvester, a machine used to harvest forage
* Harvester (forestry), a type of heavy vehicle employed in cut-to-length lo ...
.
By the late 1920s many previously scarce goods were in good supply. One economist has argued that this constituted "overproduction" and contributed to high unemployment during the
Great Depression.
Say's law
In classical economics, Say's law, or the law of markets, is the claim that the production of a product creates demand for another product by providing something of value which can be exchanged for that other product. So, production is the source ...
denies the possibility of general
overproduction
In economics, overproduction, oversupply, excess of supply or glut refers to excess of supply over demand of products being offered to the market. This leads to lower prices and/or unsold goods along with the possibility of unemployment.
The d ...
and for this reason classical economists deny that it had any role in the Great Depression.
Mass production allowed the
evolution
Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation ...
of
consumerism
Consumerism is a social and economic order that encourages the acquisition of goods and services in ever-increasing amounts. With the Industrial Revolution, but particularly in the 20th century, mass production led to overproduction—the su ...
by lowering the
unit cost
The unit cost is the price incurred by a company
A company, abbreviated as co., is a legal entity representing an association of people, whether natural, legal or a mixture of both, with a specific objective. Company members share a com ...
of many goods used.
Mass production has been linked to the
Fast Fashion Industry, often leaving the consumer with lower quality garments for a lower cost. Most fast-fashion clothing is mass-produced, which means it is typically made of cheap fabrics, such as
polyester, and constructed poorly in order to keep short turnaround times to meet the demands of consumers and shifting trends.
See also
*
Batch production
Batch production is a method of manufacturing where the products are made as specified groups or amounts, within a time frame. A batch can go through a series of steps in a large manufacturing process to make the final desired product. Batch prod ...
*
Craft production
Craft production is manufacturing by hand, with or without the aid of tools. The term "craft production" describes manufacturing techniques that are used in handicraft trades. They were the common methods of manufacture in the pre-industrialized ...
*
Continuous production
Continuous production is a flow production method used to manufacture, produce, or process materials without interruption. Continuous production is called a continuous process or a continuous flow process because the materials, either dry bulk ...
*
Culture industry
The term culture industry (german: Kulturindustrie) was coined by the critical theorists Theodor Adorno (1903–1969) and Max Horkheimer (1895–1973), and was presented as critical vocabulary in the chapter "The Culture Industry: Enlightenment ...
*
Fast-moving consumer goods
*
Fordism
Fordism is a manufacturing technology that serves as the basis of modern economic and social systems in industrialized, standardized mass production and mass consumption. The concept is named after Henry Ford. It is used in social, economic, and ...
*
Ford Model T
*
Great Divergence
The Great Divergence or European miracle is the socioeconomic shift in which the Western world (i.e. Western Europe and the parts of the New World where its people became the dominant populations) overcame pre-modern growth constraints and eme ...
*
Industrial engineering
Industrial engineering is an engineering profession that is concerned with the optimization of complex processes, systems, or organizations by developing, improving and implementing integrated systems of people, money, knowledge, information a ...
*
Industrialisation
*
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...
*
Instant manufacturing
3D printing or additive manufacturing is the construction of a three-dimensional object from a CAD model or a digital 3D model. It can be done in a variety of processes in which material is deposited, joined or solidified under computer co ...
*
Job production
Job production, sometimes called jobbing or one-off production, involves producing custom work, such as a one-off product for a specific customer or a small batch of work in quantities usually less than those of mass-market products. Job producti ...
*
Just-in-time
*
Lean manufacturing
*
Licensed production Licensed production is the production under license of technology developed elsewhere. The licensee provides the licensor of a specific product with legal production rights, technical information, process technology, and any other proprietary compon ...
*
Manufacturing
Manufacturing is the creation or production of goods with the help of equipment, labor, machines, tools, and chemical or biological processing or formulation. It is the essence of secondary sector of the economy. The term may refer to ...
*
Mass market
The term "mass market" refers to a market for goods produced on a large scale for a significant number of end consumers. The mass market differs from the niche market in that the former focuses on consumers with a wide variety of backgrounds wi ...
*
Mechanization
Mechanization is the process of changing from working largely or exclusively by hand or with animals to doing that work with machinery. In an early engineering text a machine is defined as follows:
In some fields, mechanization includes the ...
*
Modular construction systems: identical components are easier to mass-produce
*
Operations management
*
Outline of industrial organization
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to industrial organization:
Industrial organization – describes the behavior of firms in the marketplace with regard to production, pricing, employment and other decisi ...
*
Pilot plant
A pilot plant is a pre-commercial production system that employs new production technology and/or produces small volumes of new technology-based products, mainly for the purpose of learning about the new technology. The knowledge obtained is then ...
*
Cost-of-production theory of value
In economics, the cost-of-production theory of value is the theory that the price of an object or condition is determined by the sum of the cost of the resources that went into making it. The cost can comprise any of the factors of production (incl ...
*
Scientific management
*
Second Industrial Revolution
The Second Industrial Revolution, also known as the Technological Revolution, was a phase of rapid scientific discovery, standardization, mass production and industrialization from the late 19th century into the early 20th century. The Fi ...
*
Technological revolution
A technological revolution is a period in which one or more technologies is replaced by another novel technology in a short amount of time. It is an era of accelerated technological progress characterized by new innovations whose rapid applic ...
*
Technological unemployment
Technological unemployment is the loss of jobs caused by technological change. It is a key type of structural unemployment.
Technological change typically includes the introduction of labour-saving "mechanical-muscle" machines or more efficie ...
References
Further reading
*
* Borth, Christy. ''Masters of Mass Production'', Bobbs-Merrill Company, Indianapolis, IN, 1945.
* Herman, Arthur. ''Freedom's Forge: How American Business Produced Victory in World War II'', Random House, New York, NY, 2012. .
External links
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mass Production
History of science and technology in the United States
Industrial processes
Business economics
Types of production
Economic development