Early Assembly Lines in Automobile Factories

Henry Ford was not the first person to use an assembly line in producing cars.

R. E. Olds was the first person to use an assembly line for cars. He began doing this in 1901 when he built Oldsmobile cars.

Henry Ford perfected the assembly line and made it more efficient by building the first conveyor-belt based assembly line. This moving line reduced the costs of producing by speeding up the assembly process.

Ford got his ideas from the meat-packing business. In these businesses in Chicago, cattle carcasses moved along a trolley system. Each worker along the line butchered off a piece of the animal.

Using the moving assembly line, Ford was able to produce uniform cars much quicker.

With Ford’s assembly line the total time to make a single car fell from 12 and a half hours to 93 minutes. This led to reduced prices and cars became more affordable.