Henry Ford - Father of Assembly Lines

Have you ever wondered how we get so many cars, buses, trucks and bikes on road these days? There are many vehicles which are mass produced by almost all the companies today. Mass production is the only answer to today's increasing demands and all companies are equipped to mass produce most of their products. Ford's innovation is one of the reasons why America is what it is right now.

Germans had a upper hand in the development of the vehicle technology as a whole however it was the Americans who were able to introduce mass production in manufacturing the vehicles by inventing the assembly lines.

Ransom E Olds.

Misconception

There is a common misconception that it was Henry Ford who was the inventor of  assembly lines, it was not Ford. Ransom E. Olds was the inventor of the assembly lines in 1901, he mass produced his car named Oldsmobile Curved Dash. Modern assembly lines are the improvised versions of his assembly lines. By introducing assembly lines in production he maximized the production by four times. Production of the car increased from 425 in 1901 to 2500 in 1902, and there were 19000 produced in total which is remarkable considering the time and technology. 

Assembly Lines

Now moving on to the topic, Henry Ford - Father of Assembly Lines. Why I say him as the father of the assembly line is because he used Olds' concept, tweaked it a little and he introduced his ideas into them which made it a cutting edge concept at the start of the 1900's. Lets first know what are assembly lines. Assembly lines are used to make the manufacturing process faster, easier. efficient and they are time saving. In assembly lines, the parts are added to the vehicle in a sequential manner and the whole line keeps moving which reduces the time to produce the finished vehicle. Also the operators do not move much and the parts are delivered to them. 

Time saving in assembly lines

Here's an example to understand the time saving by using assembly lines

Consider the assembly of the car with the installation of engine, installation of bonet and the installation of the wheels.

The traditional approach will have a separate station for the assembly of one car. And all the assembly will be made in the station. If the engine installation takes 20 minutes and the bonet takes 5 minutes and the wheels take 10 minutes, the car will be assembled in 35 minutes.

In the assembly line, the car is split between several station which allows all the stations working and three cars can we worked at the same time but on different part. First lets take the first car, it takes 20 minutes to fit the engine, and it is moved to the second station to fit the bonet which takes 5 minutes and at last to to the wheel assembly station which takes 10 minutes. If the engine has been mounted, the first station will move on to assemble the other car and the second station will assemble the first car hence we save time. After bonet assembly the car will move to wheel assembly. Now when the second car's engine is mounted it will be moved to bonet assembly while the first car's wheel will be assembled.

Assuming no loss in time while moving car between stations, the car can be assembled in 20 minutes once the first car takes 35 minutes to assemble.

Henry Ford - Introduction

Born on 30th July, 1863 was a Industrialist and founder of the Ford Motor Company in 1901. He can be regarded as the sole sponsor and developer of the moving assembly line technique, this technology allowed to mass-produce the car and also allowed a common man to own a car.

In his early years, he lived with his parents and he had four siblings. At the age of 15 his father gave him a watch, he used to mend with the watch and he learnt to repair the watch eventually and thus he helped his neighbors fix their clocks and watched and he gained a reputation as a 'watch repairman'

After his mother's death in 1876, he was entrusted with the farm. But he was not interested in farming, he left his farm in 1879, moved to Detroit and joined James F. Flower and Bros as a apprentice machinist. He later worked for Detroit Dry Dock Co. and in 1882 he returned to his farm and that's when he gained substantial knowledge on operating and working of the Westinghouse Steam Engines and later he was hired by the Westinghouse to service the engines.

He married Clara Ala Bryant in 1888 and at this  point of time, he was supporting him by farming and owning a sawmill. Later they had a son named Edsel Ford, he died in 1943 of stomach cancer.

In 1891 he joined Edison Illuminating Company as an Engineer and in 1893 he was promoted as a Chief Engineer, this gave him time and money to work on gasoline engines. On June 4, 1896 he first test drove his automobile called as Ford Quadricycle. Then Ford tried to develop this vehicle by brain storming. Later he attended a meeting with the Edison executives where he was introduced to Thomas Edison who gave him confidence to build another vehicle, which allowed him to complete his second vehicle in 1898. With the financial backing from a lumber baron named William H. Murphy he started Detroit Automobile Company in 1899 after resigning in Edison Illuminating Company, the company dissolved because Ford was not satisfied due to the low quality cars and higher price.

In 1901 he designed a automobile with '26- Horsepower' with the help of C. Harold Willis and then they started Henry Ford Company with Ford as a Chief Engineer, but in 1902 Ford left the company as Murphy brought Henry M. Lealand as a consultant. The company was renamed as Cadillac Automobile Company and later it was acquired by General Motors Company. 

Ford later joined his old friend Alexander Malcomson and started a company called Ford & Malcomson Ltd. to produce automobiles. They leased a factory and a machine shop owned by John and Horace E. Dodge for parts. At first the sales was slow and there was crisis when the Dodges' demanded money for their first shipment. Malcomson in return brought another group of investors and convinced Dodge brothers and then they formed Ford Motor Company in 1903 with $28,000 capital.

Henry Ford's Assembly Lines with Interchangeable Parts

In 1908, Henry Ford's T automobile was his 20th design over a five - year period. Ford named his cars alphabetically starting from A. Ford achieved mass production by not only using the continuously moving assembly lines but also his idea of using the interchangeable parts with a common gauging system. By using same gauging system, he eliminated the simple difficulties the fitters faced while assembling the cars like filing the parts.

Ford introduced a single cylinder block for a four-cylinder engine which cut down the time and cost of production and also assembling was easier with a single block for all the four cylinders. This gave him an edge over his competitors because they were using the cast cylinder block separately for each cylinder. 

When he first started to manufacture cars, he used assembly stands where mostly one car was built by one fitter and it took 514 minutes in total. 

His first innovative step was to bring the parts to the workstation and thus fitters need not move to bring the parts. When the parts interchangeability was introduced, Ford decided that one work would perform only a single task and move from vehicle to vehicle, before moving assembly lines and by now the task cycle time for a assembler was reduced from 514 to 2.3 minutes. With interchangeable parts, the worker was not filing the parts and now he was more familiar with the task he was doing, naturally productivity increased.

Even though moving workers increased productivity, there was a problem, faster workers were moving ahead of the slower workers and this caused problems, however, this was eliminated when the moving assembly line was introduced in 1913 at his New Highland Park plant in Detroit. This reduced to task cycle time of a assembler from 2.3 minutes to 1.19 minutes because the worker was not moving now. 

By introducing the parts interchangeability and the moving assembly lines, Ford not only increased the production, but also decreased the stress involved for the workers. The cost of the car dropped dramatically and it sold 2 million identical vehicles a year in the early 1920's.

Ford made the car even more appealing by making the car versatile, the car was designed to fit the farm equipment very easily such that the farmer can use it. And he handed out a 64 paged manual for the owner to solve 140 problems likely to occur in the car.

Thus Ford thrived in the early 1900's, its competitors were of no match to the manufacturing standards and the method employed by Ford. 

Ford was paying his workers $5/day which was very high for that period of time.

Story behind the first car- Automobile- Karl Benz

Young Karl Benz

Carl Benz

 World's first automobile was patented by Karl Benz on January 29, 1886. He named it as Benz Patent Motorwagen. The patent number was DRP: "automobile fueled by gas". Thus Karl Benz's invention revolutionized the world of automobiles.


Karl Benz was born on November 25, 1844 in n Mühlburg. His father Johann George Benz was a locomotive driver. Benz primarily focused on locksmithing but ended up interested in locomotive engineering, following his father's steps. Benz studied mechanical engineering at the University of Karlsruhe and graduated at the age of nineteen.

Soon after graduating, Benz started to work for many engineering firms, but he did not fit well in any of them. He worked as a draftsmen, designer and also worked for a bridge building company and finally worked for a iron company in Vienna.

Bertha Benz

In 1871, aging twenty-seven, Karl Benz and August Ritter launched a Workshop and a Iron foundry in Mannheim. But the company did not do well. With Ritter turning unreliable, the company was in grave danger. It was then Bertha Benz bought Ritter's company share with her dowry. 
Bertha Benz was one of the important driving force for Karl's inventions. Even though the company had misfortunes, Karl managed to get more revenues by filing new patents and he was inventing new engines and designs. He received the patent for his two-stroke engine in 1879. He also patented his inventions which includes spark plug, carburetor, clutch, gear shift, water radiator, speed regulation system, ignition using  white sparks with battery and many more.

Benz with family and friends

Karl Benz

But situation worsened as the banks threatened of incorporation as the company had highproduction cost. Luckily the Benzes formed a new association with Emil Bühler, Karl's brother. They formed a new joint-venture naming Gasmotoren Fabrik Mannheim in 1882. But Karl was unhappy with his new role as a director and he had only 5% of the shares, worst of all his ideas were not taken into consideration, which forced him to withdraw from the corporation in 1883. 

Benz & Cie plate

His hobby brought him to bicycle repair shop in Mannheim owned by Max Rose and Friedrich Wilhelm Eßlinger. In 1883, the three founded Benz & Cie to produce industrial machines. But soon the company developed with 25 employees and started manufacturing gas engines. 
The company's success allowed him to work on his goal to design a horseless carriage. His dedication and passion made him to invent a automobile similar to a bicycle. His automobile has three wheels and he placed his four-stroke engine between the rear wheels which used the coil ignition technology.  The power was transmitted to the rear axle via two roller chains. He patented his automobile in 1886, and this the Benz Patnent Motor Wagen was the first automobile introduced to the world.
The first automobile sported a Benz 954 cc single-cylinder four-stroke engine. This engine produced 2/3 HP (0.50kW) at 250 rpm. But later it was confirmed that it was capable of producing 0.9 HP at 400 rpm. The engine weighed around 100kg and it used a open crank-case with the drip oiling system. It used a pushrod activated poppet valve for the exhaust and a large horizontal flywheel to balance the engine's output power.

Benz Patent MotorWagen

To demonstrate the feasibility of the Benz Patent wagen on the long distance travels, Bertha Benz took the Patent-Motorwagen No. 3, supposedly without her husband's knowledge, and drove it on the first long-distance automobile road trip to demonstrate its feasibility as a means to travel long distances.

Bertha Benz

That trip occurred in early August 1888, as the entrepreneurial lady took her sons Eugen and Richard, fifteen and fourteen years old, respectively, on a ride from Mannheim through Heidelberg, and Wiesloch (where she took on ligroin as a fuel at the city pharmacy, making it the first filling station in history), to her maternal hometown of Pforzheim.

Karl Benz and Bertha Benz

As well as being the driver, Benz acted as mechanic on the drive, cleaning the carburetor with her hat pin and using a garter to insulate a wire. She refueled at the local pharmacy in Wiesloch and as the brakes wore down, Benz asked a local shoemaker to nail leather on the brake blocks, in doing so, inventing brake lining on the way. After sending a telegram to her husband of the arrival in Pforzheim, she spent the night at her mother's house and returned home three days later. The trip covered 194 km (121 mi) in total.

In Germany, a parade of antique automobiles celebrates this historic trip of Bertha Benz every two years. In 2008, the Bertha Benz Memorial Route was officially approved as a route of industrial heritage of mankind, because it follows Bertha Benz's tracks of the world's first long-distance journey by automobile in 1888. Now everybody can follow the 194 km (121 mi) of signposted route from Mannheim via Heidelberg to Pforzheim(Black Forest) and back.

Benz Victoria

And thus the company developed and it was the biggest automobile manufacturer in the world at the end of the 19th century. It produced 572 units in the year 1899.

First built Benz truck

Benz & Cie

Benz & Cie became a joint-venture company with the a new board of management. With the recommendation of the new directors, Benz designed a car for mass production and named it Victoria, it used a rolled-chained tiller for steering. Benz Velo participated in the first automotive race in 1894. In 1895, Benz designed the first truck in the history.

Benz followed his dream, he wanted to design a horseless carriage and he achieved it. He could have been the director of the Gasmotoren Fabrik Mannheim, but he wanted to follow his dream, he quit the job and went to his hobby of bicycle works. He could have worked as an engineer in some engineering firm, but he chose to follow his dream. Every man should follow his dream, no matter what happens.

Vishanth.

History of Engines

Automobile Engineering developed only after the invention of Internal combustion engines. Internal combustion engines are the devices in which the combustion occurs inside the cylinder, particularly a combustion chamber and the conversion of energy occurs. An IC engine converts chemical energy into mechanical energy. When the fuel like petrol, diesel or a gas burns inside the engine, exothermic reaction occurs, this results in the release of lots of heat and pressure which pushes the piston in the cylinder down, and hence the chemical energy is converted into mechanical energy.

Engine Disassembled.

The development in the field of engines dates back to 19th century and before. Because only in the mid-1850's people invented machines and drills to harness crude oil and extract fossil fuels. So which made availability of fuels easily around the 19th century. This inturn helped the scientists and the inventors to work with the machines and different types of fuels.

Even though there were attempts to find a successful internal combustion engines in late 1600's and 1700's, it was Francois Issac de Rivaz in 1804 who made a reciprocating engine similar to the ones used in the modern automobiles. This IC engine is considered as the world's first IC engine because it had a spark ignition technology and used Hydrogen as a fuel. This was used as a pumping device.

Then in 1823, Sadi Carnot, a French Engineer proposed Carnot cycle. I think this is one of the important proposal in the field of automobile engineering because this cycle emphasizes the importance and need for the compression in the engines to gain the maximum efficiency.

The mid and the late 1800's were the importance phase in the growth and development of the engine technology because during the time period, many types of engines were invented. There was the development of the water-jacketed engine,a four-cycled engine, gas engines and compression engines.

Lenoir Motor

In 1860, Belgian Engineer named Jean Joseph Etienne Lenoire invented a commercially produced engine. It used the parts in the modern engines like connecting rod, piston and cylinders. It used Ruhmkorff ignition system to burn the mixture of coal gas and air. It also used a primitive carburetor.

Lenoir's Engine

Nikolaus Otto invented a compressionless engine which used a free-piston in 1862. Then in 1867, Otto along with Eugene Langen produced an engine which consumed only half the fuel consumed by Lenoir's engine.

In 1876, Nikolaus Otto, Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach worked on the four-cycle in-cylinder compression engines. But they were denied of the patent rights.

In 1879,Karl Benz worked independently to develop a two-stroke engine and later he got the patent rights for it. In 1885, Benz developed a four-cycle engine which he patented in 1886. These engines were used in the automobiles produce later. Benz's engines were considered reliable at that point of time.

First Automobile made

Daimler and Benz

Wilhelm Maybach

Daimler, Maybach and Benz

One of the important invention in the field of Automobile Engineering is the compression ignition engine or the CI engine. It was developed by Rudolph Diesel in 1893. This engine uses the heat of compression to ignite the fuel.

Rudolph's Diesel Engine

Rudolf Diesel

Another type of engine is the rotary engine which was patented by Felix Wankel in the year 1929, and he made a working prototype with NSU in the year 1957.

In 1925, Hesselmen Engine demonstrated the direct injection of gasoline into the cylinder.


I personally think that the above inventions were very important and they played a major role in development of the engines, however there were many inventions in the history of the engine development. Thanks for reading this post and I will make more in the coming days. Stay tuned.

Vishanth.

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