I just had to share this wonderful illustration Ford made in recognition of their 50th anniversary in 1953. The simplified floor plan was meant to show customers how quickly and efficiently their new Ford cars were build. The longest process- the act... <BR><BR>To read the rest of this blog entry from The Jalopy Journal, click here.
The front sheetmetal went on first?? I would have thought the body would have been first... very cool diagram though, thanks for sharing!
people say working in an automotive plant is boring and mindless, but I never felt that way. I still find the whole process fascinating start to finish. I love it.
Pretty neat! I work on a team supporting a global (1000+ locations) operations excellence initiative. We train managers, executives, supervisors and workers, alike on how to do things from a common sense approach to efficiency and quality. Toyota has been a mentor to our program for years and we draw a great deal on the early lessons to be learned from Ford. This, in particular, exemplifies a key lesson we teach about balancing resources. It's really cool to see it in such an easy to understand illustration. I can't wait for the next installment!
Great post. I have that book, and if any of you can ever find a copy, you should get it. Fascinating stuff; it also has photos of the design studios--and all their *****en concept cars, including the Muroc--plus a photo of a real live hot rod, and some text about that; and a feature on some, 90-year-old man, who still drives his Model T. (Sometimes. When he's not eating pudding.) Check it out.
Yeah, to the engineers who design these cars and ***embly systems it's all about cost and ease of manufacture, not maintanance and repair by us poor schmuk mechanics. Cool diagram Jay.
JH, there is no point in feeling "inefficient". 87 minutes is a gross understatement. The real evaluation involves designer time, engineering time, ***embly-line devolopment time, individual component manufacturing time, along with numerous other "times". The true answer to the question, "How long does it take to manufacture a 1953 Ford from raw materials to factory storage facility?" would be in total man/hours. You all well know, that if you bought one of those Speedway Motors Deuce Roadster kits with every sub-***embly delivered to your shop, and had three other capable rodder friends helping, it would still take an intensive long weekend to get it together and legally driveable! And that's without fenders. BTW, their schematic shows a '52 Ford rolling off the ***embly line.
I whole-heartedly agree with Autobilly. I presented that pointed question to a retired Ford engineer just prior to a tour of the Ford Truck ***embly Plant in Oakville, Ontario in 1999. In front of 40 of Canada's sharpest high school mechanic students and their teacher/instructors his answer was ............(after talking for a minute and a half, he never did answer the question) This was duly noted by others in the tour group!
Really cool! Thanks. I remember going to GM's South Gate, CA plant for tours when I was a kid. the whole process was fascinating.
Wow, thats awesome. Thanks for the post. My dad came out to visit me in school one year and we decided to take a drive up to the rouge (I think thats how you spell it) plant in michigan. Unfortunatly the plant was not running because it was a saturday, but it was worth the trip non the less. Its amazing seeing how the factory ***embles the stuff compared to how we build it. Plus the museum kicks ***!
Cool, I actually have a "FORD AT 50" book from 1953. Its one of my favorite old books in my collection. There is a picture in there of a way chopped 33-34 3 window coupe with a track nose, it looks like the Peterson coupe other than the fact its a solid color.
In 1953 our eighth grade cl*** took a tour of the Ford ***embly plant in Somerville M***. The tour ended with the same group of cars you saw coming together at the start driving off the line at the finish. There were two lines that ended at two doors at the end of the plant. Every couple of minutes a new '53 Ford would fire up and head out the door for the parking area. They didn't waste any time with that either.
I've got a copy of this book I was able to get from my high school library. Anytime I would go into the library I would sit and go through the book over and over. I think I was the only one who ever checked it out in the 4 years I was going to school there LOL If anyone wants some scans out of the book I can make some for ya
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