“On the main Ford assembly line, people are working at a feverish pace. We were struck by the gloomy excited look of the people employed on the assembly line. The work absorbed them completely, there was no time even to raise their head. But it wasn't just physical fatigue. It seemed that people were mentally depressed, that they were seized by a daily six-hour madness at the conveyor belt, after which, returning home, they had to leave for a long time each time, to recover, so that the next day they would again fall into temporary insanity.
Labor is dismembered in such a way that the people of the conveyor do not know how to do anything, they have no profession. The workers here do not operate the machine, but serve it. Therefore, they do not show the dignity that the American skilled worker has. The Ford worker is well paid, but of no technical value. They can put him out at any moment and take another. And this other in twenty two minutes learn to make cars.
Working for Ford provides income, but does not improve qualifications and does not provide for the future. Because of this, the Americans try not to go to Ford, and if they go, then as foremen, employees. Ford employs Mexicans, Poles, Czechs, Italians, Negroes. The conveyor belt moves, and one after another excellent and cheap cars come off. They go out through the wide gates into the world, into the prairie, to freedom. The people who made them remain imprisoned. This is an amazing picture of the triumph of technology and the calamities of man. Cars of all colors drove along the conveyor: black, Washington blue, green, cannon-colored cars (as it is officially called), even, ox, ox, noble mice. There was one body of bright orange color, as you can see, a future taxi.
Amid the din of assembly and the clatter of automatic wrenches, one man remained stately calm. It was a painter whose duty was to draw a colored strip on the body with a thin brush. He didn’t have any equipment, not even a drill, to support his arm. On his left hand were jars of various paints. He was in no hurry. He even managed to glance over his work with a discerning eye. On a mouse-colored car, he made a green stripe. On an orange taxi, he drew a blue line. He was a freelance artist, the only person at the Ford factory who had nothing to do with technology, some kind of Nuremberg meistersinger, a freedom-loving master of the paint shop. Probably, it was established in the Ford laboratory that it is most profitable to carry out the strip in this medieval way.
The bell rang, the conveyor stopped, and small car trains entered the building with breakfast for the workers. Without washing their hands, workers went to the trailers, bought sandwiches, tomato juice, oranges - and sat on the floor. “Sir,” said Mr. Adams, suddenly animated, “do you know why Mr. Ford’s workers have breakfast on the cement floor?” This is very, very interesting, sir. Mister Ford it makes no difference how his worker will have breakfast. He knows that the conveyor belt will still make him do his job, no matter where he ate - on the floor, at the table, or even did not eat anything at all. Take General Electric, for example. It would be foolish to think, sir, that the GE administration loves workers more than Mr. Ford. Maybe even less. And yet they have excellent canteens for workers. The point is, sir, that they have skilled workers and they have to be reckoned with, they can go to another plant. This is a purely American trait, sir. Do nothing extra. Rest assured that Mr. Ford considers himself a friend of the workers. But he will not spend a single extra penny on them.
We were offered to get into a car that had just come off the assembly line. Each car makes two or three test laps on a special factory road. This is, in a way, an example of a very bad road. You can go around all the States and not find one. In general, the road was not so bad. A few correct bumps, a small, even pretty puddle - that's all, nothing terrible. And the car, made before our eyes by the hands of people who have no profession, showed remarkable properties. "
Ilya Ilf, Evgeny Petrov, One-Storey America, in Sat: Essays on Soviet Writers about America / Comp .: M.A. Saparov, L., "Lenizdat", 1983, p. 204-205.
Most Americans believe that Henry Ford invented the automobile. Everyone is sure that Henry Ford invented the conveyor, although 6 years before Ford, a certain Ransom Olds used moving carts in production, and belt conveyors were already used in grain elevators and meat processing plants in Chicago. The merit of Ford is that he created a line production. He came up with the car business. When enterprises became economically organized, there was a demand for a manager. The 20th century has become the century of government. But in order to come to this, the creators had to appear at the beginning of the century. Henry Ford was such a creator. And for this he was recognized by Fortune magazine as the best businessman of the 20th century.
Henry Ford built the largest industrial production of the early 20th century and earned $ 1 billion ($ 36 billion in today's dollars) from it, his principles have had a huge impact on public life in the United States. He sold 15 and a half million Ford-T cars, the assembly line has become a routine and necessary thing. Ford paid workers twice as much and thus created the blue-collar class. His workers saved up money to buy "their" car - "Ford-T". Ford did not create demand for cars, he created conditions for demand. American management was born in the struggle against Ford principles. The founders of management theory formulated their principles in a correspondence dispute with Ford, and one of the first American practicing managers - Alfred Sloan of General Motors - defeated Henry Ford in a face-to-face battle.
The incredible success of the Ford entrepreneur ended in 1927 with the collapse of the Ford manager. By this time, Ford could no longer change. He so believed in his success and his righteousness that he did not notice the change of time, when the process of organizing a successful production passed into the stage of management. Ford once said: "Gymnastics is complete nonsense. Healthy people do not need it, but sick people are contraindicated." His attitude to management was the same. Only the product is important. If he is good, he will make a profit himself, if he is bad, then no financial investments, no wonderful management will make him successful. Ford despised the art of management. He spent less time in the office than in the shop. The financial papers annoyed him. He hated bankers and only accepted cash. He called the financiers speculators, thieves, wreckers and even robbers, shareholders - parasites.
"How many people are convinced that the most important thing is the structure of the factory, sales, financial resources, business management," Ford was surprised. Ford launched mass production when he achieved a universal, that is, ideal, from his point of view, product. Further, an established production cycle creates a car, managers take into account only the total output, Ford himself makes sure that the departments work in concert, and the profit flows by itself. In his company, Ford made all the important decisions single-handedly. The market strategy was to use "penetration prices". The annual increase in production, the constant decrease in costs, the regular decline in car prices created stable demand and increased profits. The profits were returned to production. Ford paid nothing to shareholders. After becoming a successful individual entrepreneur, Ford saw commercial success as the best confirmation of his theory. He never tired of repeating: "Only work is able to create value."
The pure American dream
Henry Ford was born into a poor family, became rich and famous. Americans may forget the name of their president, but they will always remember the name of their car. Henry Ford's life was subordinated to one idea. He suffered defeat, endured ridicule, fought against intrigue. But he achieved everything he dreamed of. Henry Ford created the universal car and became a billionaire. He lived all his life with his wife Klara, who believed in him and always supported him. When asked if he would like to live life again, Ford replied: "Only if you can marry Clara again." His biography can be used to make a Hollywood film.
He was born on July 30, 1863, to an American farmer near Dearborn, Michigan. The family was not rich, my father worked all day in the field. Once, twelve-year-old Henry went with his parents to Detroit and for the first time saw a carriage with a motor - a locomobile. The horseless cart made a strong impression on the intelligent boy. The boiler was fired with coal, the locomobile barely trudged along the country road and stopped to let the Fords cart pass. While the father driving the horses tried to drive, Henry spoke to the driver. He was terribly proud of his unit, so he began to show how the chain is removed from the moving wheel and how the drive belt is put on.
From that day on, Henry spent days trying to construct a moving mechanism. His toys were tools, his pockets were stuffed with nuts, and after his parents gave Henry a watch, he took it apart and put it back together. When you scold your children for deciding to see what's inside the tape recorder, think about Henry Ford. At the age of 15, Henry was fixing broken watches for neighbors and collecting the simplest mechanisms from all the rubbish. He did not finish school. "You cannot learn anything practical from books - a machine is for a technician what books are for a writer, and a real technician should, in fact, know how everything is made. From here he will get ideas, and since he has a head on his shoulders, he will try them, "Henry Ford later wrote.
Henry Ford's father wanted his son to work with him on the farm - he continued the business. But the future founder of the automotive empire broke away from his roots and entered a mechanical workshop as an apprentice. At night he worked part-time with a jeweler - he repaired watches. He did not know rest at work, sometimes gaining 300 hours for repairs. Soon, however, Ford ceased to be interested in watches. He decided that watches were not essential and that not all people would be eager to buy them. He was drawn to self-propelled carriages. At the age of 16, he learned to drive a locomobile and got a job at Westinghouse as an expert in the assembly and repair of locomotives. These cars traveled at 12 miles per hour and were used as pulling power. The locomotive weighed several tons, they were so expensive that only a rich farmer could buy them. Ford decided to build a light steam wagon that could replace the horse when plowing. It was necessary to invent and build a steam engine, light enough to pull an ordinary cart or plow. “Shifting the difficult, harsh work of a farmer from human shoulders to steel and iron has always been the main subject of my ambition,” said Ford.
But it was not a mass product. People showed more interest in a car they could drive on the road than in a field tool. And Henry put together a cart with steam engine... But it was not very pleasant to sit on the boiler under high pressure... For two years, Ford continued experiments with various boiler systems and made sure that a light horseless carriage with a steam engine could not be built. And then he first heard about gas engines. Like any new idea, she was perceived with curiosity, but without enthusiasm. Ford recalled that then there was not a single person who would have believed that the engine internal combustion may be further disseminated: "All smart people have irrefutably proved that such a motor cannot compete with steam engine... They had no idea that someday he would conquer the field of action. ”From that moment on, he disdained the advice of“ smart people ”.
In 1887, Henry Ford designed a model of the engine. To do this, he had (as in childhood) to disassemble a real engine that had fallen into his workshop and figure out what's what. To continue his experiments, Ford returned to the farm - not to plow, but to set up a workshop in the barn. His father offered Henry 40 acres of forest if he stopped poking around in cars. Henry cheated: he agreed, set up a sawmill, got married. But I spent all my free time in the workshop. He read a bunch of books on mechanics, designed motors, tried to adapt a motor to a bicycle. But it was impossible to advance further alone on the farm, and then Ford was offered a job as an engineer and mechanic at the Detroit Electric Company with a salary of $ 45 a month.
New colleagues laughed at him and tried to explain that the future belongs to electricity. It was then that Ford met Thomas Edison for the first time, told him about his work and shared his doubts. Edison became interested: "Any lightweight engine that can develop a larger number Horse power and does not need any special source of power, has a future. We do not know what can be achieved with electricity, but I believe that it is not omnipotent. Continue working on your car. If you achieve the goal that you have set for yourself, then I predict a great future for you. "Now no one could convince him. We must continue to work. After all, besides his devoted wife, Thomas Edison himself believed in him.
In 1893, Ford assembled his first automobile, the ATV. To get out of the barn, they had to break the wall. When Henry Ford rode around Detroit in his "ATV", the horses were running away from him, and passers-by surrounded an unusual cart, which not only drove by itself, but also rattled all over the area. As soon as Ford left the "ATV" for a minute unattended, some curious impudent gentleman immediately climbed into it and tried to ride. I had to chain my car to a lamppost at every stop. Although there were no rules yet road traffic Henry received a police clearance and became America's first officially approved chauffeur. In 1896 he sold the car for $ 200. This was his first sale. The money was immediately used to create a new car, lighter. He believed that heavy vehicles were for units. A locomotive, tank or tractor cannot be in mass demand. However, if now Henry Ford saw the Ford Expedition, he might have revised his views. But Ford believed that a mass product should be light and affordable: "Excess weight is as meaningless in any object as a badge on a coachman's hat - perhaps even more meaningless. The badge may, after all, serve for identification, while being overweight only means wasting energy. "
Although by this time he had already been promoted to the first engineer with a monthly salary of $ 125, the experiments with the car were met with no more sympathy from the director than his father's attraction to mechanics had previously. "I still hear his words in my ears:" Electricity - yes, the future belongs to him. But gas ?! No! "- Ford will later recall. The company offered Ford a high position on the condition that he quit doing nonsense and devote himself at last to a real business. Ford chose a car. On August 15, 1899, he refused service to devote himself to the automotive business.
Myself. Only myself
There were also quick-witted companions who suggested that Ford create the Detroit Automobile Company for the production of racing cars- they did not see any other application for cars then. Ford tried to defend the idea of mass production, but was left alone. “Everyone had one thought: to collect orders and sell as expensive as possible. The main thing was to make money. Since I had no influence in my post of engineer, I soon realized that the new company was not a suitable vehicle for implementing my ideas, exclusively only a monetary enterprise, which, moreover, brought little money. " In March 1902, he resigned from his post and firmly resolved to never again occupy a dependent position.
Ford never considered speed to be the main advantage of a car, but since attention could only be attracted by winning the race ("a more unreliable trial is difficult to imagine," he grinned), he had to build two cars designed exclusively for speed in 1903. "Descending from Niagara Falls should feel like a pleasant walk by comparison," he recalled of his first trip. For racing, Ford was recommended cyclist Oldfield, who had never ridden a car and was looking for new sensations. He learned how to drive in a week, and, getting into the car before the race, said cheerfully: "I know that death may be waiting for me in this cart, but at least everyone will say that I was racing like the devil." Oldfried never turned back, did not slow down on turns. He took off and did not slow down to the finish line. His victory attracted investor interest in Ford - it's easy to get money when you have the most fast car... A week later it was issued Ford company Motor.
Ford organized his enterprise the way he wanted. He chose the slogan: "If someone abandons my car, I know that I myself am to blame." The priority is a product that is simple, reliable, lightweight, cheap and widespread. From the beginning, Ford was not creating a car for the rich, but a car for everyone. He avoided luxurious finishes, cared little about the prestige of the brand. There were three financial principles. Ford did not attract foreign capital to the company, bought only for cash, and invested all the profits back into production. Ford believed that only those who participated in the creation of the product, in the work itself, are entitled to dividends. All efforts of this work were directed towards the development of a universal car model.
Each of his first cars has a history. Model-A, built in 1904 with number 420, was purchased by Colonel Collier from California. After traveling for several years, he sold it and bought a new Ford. Model-A # 420 passed from hand to hand until it became the property of a mountain resident Edmund Jacobs. He used the car for several years for the most difficult work, bought a new Ford and sold the old one. In 1915, the car fell into the possession of a certain Cantello, who took out the engine and adapted it to a water pump, and attached shafts to the chassis, so that the engine began to pump water conscientiously, and the chassis, into which the mule was harnessed, replaced the peasant cart. The moral of the story is clear: Ford's car can be taken apart, but it cannot be destroyed.
Ford did not come up with beautiful names for its cars. He used the letters of the English alphabet in a row. While the previous models sold well, they remained experimental. Model-T has become universal. Her characteristic feature was simplicity. The advertisement read: "Every child can drive a Ford."
Ideal creation
And one fine morning in 1909, Ford announced that in the future there would be only one model, the "T," and that all cars would have the same chassis. Ford said: "Every customer can get a Ford-T in any color, as long as that color is black." In a statement, Ford tried to change the concept of a car as a recreational carriage. "A car is not a luxury, but a means of transportation," Ostap Bender later parodied Henry Ford's principle. But most importantly, Ford believed in the possibility of mass sales of cars at a time when buying a car was treated the way people now treat buying an airplane. “I intend to build a car for general use. It will be big enough to fit a whole family, but small enough to be driven by one person. It will be made of the finest material, built by first-class workers and constructed with the simplest methods. whatever is possible in modern technology. Despite this, the price will be so low that anyone receiving a decent allowance can buy a car to enjoy with their family in the free, clean air, "- said in a statement Ford.
The ideal is easily believed while it is not available. The tangible ideal is suspicious. Everyone believed that you can't do something well and sell it cheaply, that you can't make a good car for a low price at all - and in general, is it advisable to build cheap cars when only the rich bought them? They said: "If Ford does as he said, in six months he will be gone." They laughed at Ford, called his enterprise "the greatest factory of cans", the Model-T was affectionately dubbed "Tin Lizzie" by the people. Spare parts for "Lizzie" were so cheap that it was more profitable to buy new ones than to fix old ones. To sell a lot, it was necessary not only to reduce the price of the car, but also to convince the buyer of the quality of the car. In the early days of the automotive industry, car sales were viewed as a profitable transaction. They received money from the buyer, the commission agent earned his interest and immediately forgot about the eccentric who bought himself expensive toy... Every car owner was considered a wealthy person who was worth shrinking. “We couldn't afford to have our sales shy by stupid thugs,” Ford announced. It infuriated him when “the disgruntled buyer was not looked at as a person whose trust had been abused, but as a very annoying person, or as an object of exploitation from which money could be squeezed out again, putting in order the work that would have been needed from the very beginning So, for example, they were very little interested in the further fate of the car after the sale: how much gasoline it consumed, what was its real power. individual parts are as expensive as possible, based on the theory that a given person, having bought a whole car, must have parts at all costs, and therefore is ready to pay well for them. "
Ford's policy of mass sales was different: “Whoever bought our car had in my eyes the right to permanent use of it. Therefore, if there was a breakdown, it was our responsibility to ensure that the crew was ready for use again as soon as possible. ". This service principle was critical to Ford's success.
His fight
The competitors were worried. In 1908, the Detroit Association of Automobile Manufacturers, frightened by Ford's boisterous claims of a cheap car, tried to drag Ford into control of prices and production volumes. They proceeded from the assumption that the market for the sale of cars is limited, therefore it is necessary to monopolize the business. On September 15, 1909, Ford loses the court on a formal basis: a certain Sölden, back in 1879, patented a "moving cart" that had nothing to do with Ford cars. However, a syndicate of automakers, relying on that patent, tried to crush the production of all American cars... After the trial, Ford opponents spread rumors that buying Ford cars was a felony and that every buyer was at risk of arrest.
Ford's return move showed confidence in victory. He ran an ad in all influential newspapers: "We are informing those buyers who, under the influence of the agitation undertaken by our opponents, have any doubts that we are ready to issue to each individual buyer a bond guaranteed by a special fund of 12 million dollars, so that each buyer secured against any coincidences prepared by those who seek to take over our production and monopolize it. You can get this bond on demand. Therefore, do not agree to buy products of lower quality at insanely high prices based on the rumors spread by our venerable company enemies ". A better advertisement could not have been imagined. Nothing made Ford more famous than that process. Ford sold over eighteen thousand cars during the year, and only 50 buyers demanded bonds. The lawsuit against the Automobile Manufacturers Association was lost, but the confidence of the buyers was won. In 1911, a new court overturned the decision in favor of Ford. "The time that is wasted fighting the competition is wasted; it would be better to use it for work," Ford said. Every year he reduced the cost of the "tin" and in 1927 solemnly left the factory in the fifteen millionth Ford-T car, which had changed little in 19 years. As did the principles of Henry Ford.
Personnel policy
When recruiting new employees, Ford was categorically opposed to hiring "competent persons". For this he was all the time accused of being uneducated. Once Henry Ford took offense at a Chicago newspaper for the word "ignorant" and filed a lawsuit. The newspaper's lawyer decided to demonstrate to the court the ignorance of Ford and asked him the question: "How many soldiers were sent by Britain to America to crush the uprising of 1776?" Ford was not at a loss: "I do not know exactly how many soldiers were sent, but I am sure that much fewer returned home." Then he pointed his finger at the lawyer and said: “If I really needed to answer your stupid questions, then I just have to press the right button in my office, and I have specialists at my disposal who can answer any question. Why do I have to stuff my head with nonsense to prove that I can answer any question? "
Although he himself announced that he would never hire a specialist. "If I wanted to kill competitors by dishonest means, I would provide them with hordes of specialists. After receiving a lot of good advice, my competitors could not get down to work," Ford said sarcastically and mercilessly fired anyone who could imagine himself an "expert." Only someone who did something with his own hands could be worthy of Ford's respect. He believed that everyone should start at the bottom of the ladder. Old experience and the past of new employees were not taken into account. “We never ask about the past of a person who is looking for a job with us - we do not accept the past, but a person. only to give him the opportunity, he will especially try not to get into it again.Our bureau of employees therefore does not refuse anyone on the basis of his previous lifestyle - whether he leaves Harvard or Sing Sing prison, we do not care; we do not even ask about He should have only one thing: the desire to work. If this is not, then, in all likelihood, he will not seek a place with us, because in general it is quite well known that Ford is doing business. "
Ford believed that everyone in his factory ends up getting where they deserve. That the wave will carry the capable man to the place that belongs to him by right. “The fact that there are no“ free ”posts for him is not an obstacle, since we, in fact, do not have any“ posts ”, - wrote Ford. - Our best workers create their own place. The appointment is not connected with any formalities ; this person immediately finds himself in a new case and receives a new remuneration. " The factory manager began with the driver. The director of a large facility at River Rouge was hired by the sample maker. The head of one of the important departments started out as a garbage collector.
His achievements
Seeking lower production costs, Ford noticed that the worker was spending more time finding and delivering material and tools than he was at work. I didn't want to pay for the workers' walks around the shop. "If twelve thousand employees save ten steps each day, there will be a saving of space and energy fifty miles," Ford calculated and realized that it was necessary to deliver work to the workers, and not vice versa. He formulated two principles: make the worker never take more than one step and never allow him to have to lean forward or to the sides during work. On April 1, 1913, Ford started the assembly line. The worker who drove in the bolt did not tighten the nut at the same time; who put the nut, did not screw it tightly. None of the workers lifted or dragged anything.
On January 12, 1914, Ford sets the minimum wage at $ 5 a day (twice the industry average!) And reduces the working day to eight hours. "The ambition of every employer should be to pay higher rates than all of its competitors, and the desire of the workers to practically facilitate the implementation of this ambition," - Ford explained his decision. At the same time, he pursues a policy of using the labor of disabled people, who are paid the same as healthy workers. The benefit was different: the disabled were better prepared for the monotony of conveyor work, because no qualifications were required. Thus, the blind man was assigned to the warehouse to count the screws and nuts to be sent to the branches. Two healthy people were doing the same job. Two days later, the head of the workshop asked that both healthy people be assigned another job, since the blind man was able to carry out the duties of the other two along with his work.
“An employer will never gain anything if he looks at his employees and asks himself the question:“ How much can I lower their wages? ”It is just as little benefit to the worker when he shakes his fist at the employer and asks:“ How much can I squeeze out of you? ” In the final analysis, both parties should stick to the enterprise and ask themselves the question: "How can you help this industry achieve a fruitful and secure existence so that it gives us all a secure and comfortable existence?" - Ford insisted that the industrialist's partners are not the shareholders, but the creators From January 1914, he notified the workers of the plan for their profit sharing.
Ford believed that profit belongs to three groups: first, the enterprise, in order to keep it in a state of stability, development and health; secondly, to the workers, with the help of whom profit is created; thirdly, to a certain extent, it is the same for society. The flourishing business brings profit to all three participants - the organizer, the producers and the buyer. According to Ford, the responsibility of the manager is to ensure that the personnel under him have the opportunity to create a decent existence for themselves. In other words, to be able to buy Ford cars. This was the first step towards the formation of the blue collar class.
"Beware of deteriorating the product, beware of lowering wages and ripping off the public. More brain in your working method - a brain and more brain! Work better than before, only in this way you can provide help and service for all countries. This can always be achieved", - called Ford. His statements were treated with suspicion, but they were not just a publicity stunt. In one year, the profit exceeded expectations so much that Ford voluntarily returned $ 50 to everyone who bought the car: "We felt that we unwittingly took from our buyer that much more expensive."
Finance
The consequence of this policy of Ford was a conflict with shareholders. "If I were forced to choose between cutting wages and destroying dividends, I would not hesitate to destroy dividends" - such maxims could not find a response from the partners. Ford invested all the money he earned in production. The company grew rich, and the shareholders, led by the Dodge brothers, hoped to receive dividends. They had no idea that production could be limited to a single model. Ford contemptuously compared them to "fashion makers": "It's amazing how deeply rooted the belief that brisk business, constant sales of a product depend not on winning the customer's trust once and for all, but on first getting him to spend money on a purchase. item, and then convince him that he should buy a new item instead. "
Ford's principle was different: every part of the car must be replaceable so that, if necessary, it can be replaced with a more modern one. A good-quality car should be as durable as a good watch. Ford's car was monotonous, but reliable. The shareholders mutinied. Henry Ford, to lull their vigilance, resigned and transferred control to his son Edsel. In the meantime, he himself began to buy shares and very soon added the remaining 49% to the 51% he had at his disposal. There were no shareholders as such. There was no one to pay dividends. Ford put Edsel in charge of finances, and he himself continued to single-handedly manage production. The policy remained unchanged: it is better to sell a large number of cars with a small profit than a small number with a large one.
How did Ford manage to buy nearly $ 60 million worth of shares? He opened new way spend less money in the company - by speeding up turnover. On January 1, he had at his disposal $ 20 million in cash (remember that Ford only recognized cash ?!), and on April 1 - already $ 87 million, 27 million more than was necessary to pay off the debt for the shares. He sold all the property that had nothing to do with production - he received 24,700,000 dollars, he got another 3 million for foreign production... He bought the railway to lose less on transportation - the gain amounted to 28 million. The sale of military loans and by-products brought 11.6 million. As a result - 87.3 million.
"If we took a loan," wrote Ford, "our desire to reduce the cost of production methods would not have materialized. If we received money at 6%, and, including commission money, and so on, we would have to pay more, then one interest at an annual production of 500,000 cars would add up to $ 4 per car.In short, instead of better production, we would buy only heavy debt.Our cars would cost about $ 100 more than they are now, our production would also be reduced because after all, the circle of buyers would have shrunk too. "
Management - according to Ford
In 1920, having sold everything that had nothing to do with the automotive industry, Ford rebuilt the factory. "Bezdelnikov" were transferred from the administration building to the workshops. "A large building for management, perhaps, is sometimes necessary, but when you see it, the suspicion awakens that there is a surplus of administration," he said. All employees who did not agree to return to the machine were fired. Internal telephones between departments are disabled. Ford came up with the motto: "Less administrative spirit in business life and more business spirit in administration." This meant that the work of lower managers was reduced to accounting, there were no organizational charts and horizontal connections between departments at the enterprise, production meetings were eliminated, no "unnecessary documentation" was kept, order journals were canceled. Proudly proclaiming that statistics cannot build a car, Ford abolished statistics.
This purely utilitarian approach to management is called Fordism. In order not to be unfounded, we will quote the founder himself: “The greatest difficulty and evil that has to be dealt with when working together with a large number of people is excessive organization and the resulting red tape. In my opinion, there is no more dangerous vocation than the so-called organizational genius. He loves to create monstrous schemes that, like a family tree, represent the ramifications of power down to its last elements. The entire trunk of the tree is hung with beautiful round berries, which bear the names of persons or positions. Each has its own title and known functions, strictly limited by the scope and scope of its activities. If the head of the workers' brigade wants to turn to his director, then his path goes through the junior head of the workshop, the senior head of the workshop, the head of the department and through all the assistant directors. , has already become history. Six weeks pass, while the clerk's paper from the bottom left berry in the corner of the great administrative tree reaches the chairman or president of the supervisory board. When it happily pushed its way up to this omnipotent face, its volume increased like an avalanche, to a whole mountain of critical reviews, suggestions and comments. It rarely happens that it comes to an official approval before the moment for its implementation has already expired. Papers wander from hand to hand, and everyone tries to shift the responsibility onto another, guided by the convenient principle that "the mind is good, but two is better", - wrote Ford in his book "My Life, My Achievements."
He saw the enterprise as "a working communication of people whose task is to work, not exchange letters." One department doesn't need to know what's going on in another. In his company, he left only lower-level managers who were accountable for the products produced by their departments. No meetings or conferences were held: the hordes considered them completely superfluous. Overly complex organizational structure, according to Ford, led to the fact that it was not clear who was responsible for what. Everyone had to be responsible for the small area of work entrusted to him - that is, he used the organizational conveyor in management. He shuffled small leaders, carefully making sure that they did not dump the blame on each other. He also did not encourage friendly relations at work, fearing that people would begin to cover up for the mistakes of a friend.
"When we work, we have to take it seriously; when we are having fun, it’s with might and main. It is pointless to mix one with the other. Everyone should set a goal for themselves - to do the job well and get a good reward for it. When the work is over, you can have fun. then the Ford factories and enterprises do not know any organization, no posts with special duties, no developed administrative system, very few titles and no conferences. Consequently, there is no red tape. We put on everyone entirely responsibility. Every employee has his own job. The head of the brigade is responsible for the workers subordinate to him, the head of the workshop - for his workshop, the head of the department - for his department, the director - for his factory. know what is happening around him. The factory has been subordinated to one and only leader for many years. As there are no titles or official powers, then there is no red tape and no excess of power. Every employee has access to everyone; this system has become so much a habit that the head of the workshop does not even feel offended if any of his workers speaks directly over his head to the head of the factory. True, the worker rarely has a reason for complaints, since the heads of the workshops know perfectly well, like their own name, that any injustice will very soon be revealed, and then they will cease to be the heads of the workshops. If a person is dizzy from a high post, then this is revealed, and then he is either kicked out or returned to the machine. Job, only one job is our teacher and leader. Titles have amazing effects. Too often, they serve as a sign to excuse themselves from work. Often the title is equal to a badge of distinction with the motto: "The owner of this is not obliged to do anything other than assessing his own high value and insignificance of other people."
Always wanting more
Ford lashed out with aphorisms ("Failure - only the opportunity to start again smarter," "More people gave up than losers"), was a tough boss, but truly loved and cared for his workers. He opened a school, a hospital, and started the tradition of collective picnics and dinners. He was a stern but fair father, hammering old-fashioned truths into the heads of his mischief-makers. If it were in his power, "Ord-T" would always be issued. When it had to be replaced in 1927, he closed production for six months. But it was too late: General Motors became the leader of the American automotive industry, realizing to reorient itself to the production of different brands, to offer the buyer a range of cars "for any purpose and any wallet."
Ford experienced the collapse of his principles extremely hard. Hatred of financiers spilled out with anti-Semitic bile (however, Ford later repented), the company was rolling down: not only GM, but Chrysler Corp. studied the demand, sold on credit (and not only for cash), developed successfully, and Ford all rested on its once surprisingly successful principles. If he were a general, he would have sent the staff officers to the front line, put a heroic foreman over them. Ford's soldiers would be dressed, shod, well fed, he would personally check the thickness of the armor of tanks, the officer ranks would be canceled. Before the battle, he would drive a Ford-T in front of the army and lead it on the attack.
What's left: conveyor belt, blue collars, dealer system and customer warranties? Not only: any mass product from the Big Mac to the disposable pen has a common parent - the Ford-T car. His grandson Henry Ford II, after the death of his grandfather, recruited a rescue team of educated managers led by future US Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. Henry Ford's principles have been revised. The "Ford-T" model has been named the car of the century. New " Ford focus" was recognized the best car 1999 year. The slogan of the advertising campaign "Ford Focus": "Always want more." True, the founder of the company himself meant something else by this. But was this Henry Ford, who was called a grumpy curmudgeon and an insane dictator, that simple? And was he the one who laid the foundations for the prosperity of the Ford empire today?
Nowadays, the conveyor belt is perceived by everyone as quite common. engineering solution, not like a laser or a nuclear power plant. Well, think about it, before the master walked around some complex unit and assembled it entirely alone, but now these units go on the conveyor and dozens of craftsmen fit each of their parts or two to them. Yes, labor productivity has increased, but it's elementary that there was something to come up with. But when 100 years ago the first production came off the assembly line of Henry Ford, it was a real revolution in production, in economics, in sociology, in philosophy.
Henry Ford was born in 1863 into a poor farming family near Detroit. He studied at such a school that by the age of 15 he had barely learned to read, and this was the end of his formal education, although he was engaged in self-education, in fact, all his life. In addition, even this school, where ALL students from the first to the eighth grade studied in the same room and with one teacher, could not kill his remarkable ability in mathematics. By the age of 20, he managed to change several jobs related to technology, and was expelled from everywhere with a crash. The main reason was his passion for invention, which took all of his time and effort. Only after getting married, Henry finally took up his mind and began to make a seemingly successful career, but at some point he was put by the management of the Electric Company before a choice: either he stops fiddling with the creation of his car and gets a great place in the company, or he can consider himself free. Henry Ford picked pie in the sky and left the company.
G. Ford
From that moment on, he completely surrendered to the realization of his dream. He continues to design cars that successfully compete with the most popular models in speed and reliability. But organizing the mass production of their cars is not possible right away - there is not enough money. The first automobile company that he created was a joint stock company, where Ford managed only the technical part and did not in any way influence either the organization of production or the policy of the company in the market. Ford believed that his current position in the production and sale of cars did not correspond to the huge potential of this sector of the economy, but he could not influence anything. Soon he leaves this firm and organizes a new one. Despite the fact that now he also owns only a part of the shares, he already feels himself the sovereign owner of the business, which is reflected in the name of the company - "Ford Motor Company". But all his attempts to do business "in a new way" again run into a misunderstanding of the partners. The bone of contention becomes price policy companies. Ford insists on lowering prices and increasing production, its partners see the future in the production of expensive luxury models. These disagreements led to the fact that after the initial successes of the business of the company begin to decline and Ford manages to buy out from disgruntled partners a part of the shares, which made his vote decisive. His time has come, and since then Ford's word has become the law for every employee of the company.
So mass production inexpensive cars for the "middle" class. But how do you get the cost down? Henry Ford decided to rely on the conveyor belt, the idea of which, as they say, was in the air. In 1902, Ford's competitor, Oldsmobile, introduced special carts for production on which the assembled machines moved around the workshop. In 1911, similar experiments began to be carried out at the automobile factories of General Motors. Although Ford was not the originator of the idea, he was still the first to understand what a huge future belongs to the conveyor. In the spring of 1913, the new principle was tested in the workshop, where the main element of the car's ignition system, the magneto, was assembled. Initially, each worker, having done his own operation on the magneto, simply transferred the mechanism to a neighbor on a long table, but even this gave a huge saving in time, when the table was replaced by a moving belt, it turned out that labor productivity increased by 4 times! During a year new system began to be used already at the assembly of all units of Ford cars. In 1914, the Ford Motor Company produced twice as many cars as in 1913, while maintaining the same number of workers. Henry Ford's cars began to rapidly conquer the market, but then a new problem appeared.
The conveyor assembly system has long and harshly criticized (largely rightly) for the fact that it completely exhausts the worker with the inability to take a breath and the monotony of the operations performed. Charlie Chaplin's excellent film "New Times" thundered, where the main character goes straight from a conveyor belt to a psychiatric hospital. The old school workers did not like the new philosophy of production - “no need to think in the workplace”, and they switched to other firms at the first opportunity. Concerned about the problem of staff turnover, Henry Ford, generally inclined to revolutionary methods of solving problems, went to a significant increase in daily wages. Critics predicted a decline in profits and even a disaster for the company, but Ford was right here too. The company's profits have grown significantly due to the fact that the cost of training new workers has decreased. From that time on, the conveyor began its triumphant march across the planet.
Henry Ford (1863-1947)
American engineer-inventor Henry Ford entered the history of the automotive industry as the creator of the first industrial assembly line. Together with him, he introduced the scientific organization of labor. Its conveyor belt on a moving chassis stretched for 300 m, the workers sequentially mounted the corresponding parts. From the gates of the factory, one by one they left finished cars... They quickly conquered all of America, and then Europe. Henry Ford is revered as the father of the US auto industry who shaped the American way of life.
At the age of 12, Henry, the son of a simple Irish farmer, first saw a self-propelled vehicle without a horse near Detroit. The guy's surprise knew no bounds. He ran closer. The driver explained that the transport is driven by a chain drive to the rear wheels, the chain rotates from the unit - a boiler with boiling water and a firebox under it. Coal is used as fuel. The more fire in the furnace, the more steam is escaped from the pipe, the higher the speed. This transport is called a locomobile, or a mobile steam power plant that drives agricultural machines. This meeting, as Ford later wrote, turned everything upside down in his mind. The self-propelled carriage became his dream and led to the construction of cars ...
Ford was born on a farm in Dearborn, Michigan. The family was of average income, but manual labor prevailed all around. Everything had to be done with his own hands - agricultural implements, stalls for pets, repairing agricultural implements. And from a young age, Henry dealt not only with simple instruments, but also with complex ones - he himself knew how to repair watches.
The young man's interest in technology was so great that he left the farm, school, abandoned his inheritance and got a job at the Thomas Edison plant in Michigan. At night, he made his own car in his garage. It was only in 1896 that he managed to build something similar to a four-wheeled cart, and in fact it was the first gasoline ATV. And he rode it, scaring the neighbors with a roar.
But one car is only one car, you can't earn much on it, and he needed money. He joined a car manufacturing company. He designed, made new cars, even assembled racing cars, but his owners only wanted profit, they were not interested in inventions, and he left.
In the years 1900-1908, many American entrepreneurs created automobile companies. Out of five hundred, only a few survived. Ford also tried to create his own company, but a year later it went bankrupt. What was left to do?
Henry Ford was Irish, and they are known to be stubborn. In addition, he had a reputation as an excellent mechanic, intelligent constructor, and had a speed record on his own race car, which meant something. And in 1903 he created the Ford Motor Company. He wanted to make cars for ordinary people, so the car had to be inexpensive so that the workers themselves could buy it. He instilled in the workers the dream of their own car and promised to fulfill it.
At that time in America, cars were sold for $ 1,000 or more. Ford did not create a car for the rich, and therefore cared little about the upholstery and the prestige of the brand. He wanted to get the price of his car below $ 1,000. Henry labored along with his engineers day and night. He loved his brainchild and wanted all America to love his cars. Ford began producing models in alphabetical order, from Model A to Model T. Its release began in 1908. Ford-T became the first model of the company, in the production of which the conveyor was used for the first time. Each worker in this in-line production performed one single operation, but very quickly. Every 10 seconds a Model T car rolled off the assembly line, one after the other. It was a landmark event in the industrial revolution.
The Model T was soon recognized as the most successful, it went off the assembly line first for $ 800, by 1920 at $ 600 and later at $ 345! Of such low prices no one had. At the same time, Ford began to paint all cars in one color - black. Jokingly, he said: "The color of the car can be any, provided that it is black."
Large entrepreneurs laughed at him - with the idea of a mass car, he would go broke, he did not produce cars, but black tin cans with motors. Ford did not pay attention to the mocking statements, he continued to pursue his production policy. He told his workers that in the event of a breakdown of the machine, the plant would help to repair it. To this end, he began to produce spare parts for his cars, which no one had ever done before.
Ford recruited people who obeyed his routine. He even took the disabled. Since 1914, he has paid workers $ 5 a day. This was twice the industry average. He reduced the working day to 8 hours, gave his workers 2 days off! The conveyor assembly of cars used by him accelerated their production - the assembly time was reduced from 10 hours to 1.5 hours. Interest in his model continued to grow, and he sold up to 100 cars a day.
In 1920, he decided to reconstruct the enterprise and eliminate everything that had no direct relation to the automotive industry. Some "white collars" were asked to go to the workshops, to join the line of "blue collars". All who did not agree to work on the assembly line, Ford fired, proclaiming a new slogan: "Less administration in the business life of the company and more business spirit in the administration." He eliminated unnecessary production meetings, banned all unnecessary documentation, canceled a lot in statistics.
All his innovations turned into an accelerated work of the conveyor, a large release of the same type of cars. Money flowed in a powerful stream, but he again invested everything he earned in production. His company grew rich, the partners were counting on receiving dividends, but Ford quickly bought all the shares in the company and became the sole owner of his enterprises. Now he disposed of all the dividends alone and immediately became rich.
The number of modifications to the Model T was enormous, from the convertible to the pickup. Ford was repeatedly offered to sell the company, given a high price. To such proposals, he answered in monosyllables: "Then I will have money, but there will be no work." He treated money calmly, even indifferently.
Ford T was made in the version of a military ambulance
During World War I, Ford, a pacifist by nature, organized a trip on an ocean liner to Europe, trying to convince Europeans to stop fratricide. Nothing came of his idea. Then he began to produce military vehicles and even tanks. During World War II, he built an aircraft factory and began producing the B-24 bomber. After his death, the company was headed by his son Henry Ford Jr.
By 1927, 15 million Model T cars had been produced and sold. The company itself was valued at $ 700 million. The capital of Ford, together with his son, reached 1.2 billion (at present, about 30 billion) dollars.
