UnitAutomobileMassProductionProcess.ppt

Unit 2 Automobile Mass Production Process Unit 2 Automobile Mass Production Process Background In 1908 Henry Ford began production of the Model T automobile. Based on his original Model A design first manufactured in 1903, the Model T took five years to develop. Its creation inaugurated what we know today as the mass production assembly line. This revolutionary idea was based on the concept of simply assembling interchangeable component parts[1]. Unit 2 Automobile Mass Production Process Unit 2 Automobile Mass Production Process Fords first venture into automobile assembly with the Model A involved setting up assembly stands on which the whole vehicle was built, usually by a single assembler who fit an entire section of the car together in one place. By the time the Model T was being developed Ford had decided to use multiple assembly stands with assemblers moving from stand to stand, each performing a specific function[2]. Unit 2 Automobile Mass Production Process This process reduced the assembly time for each fitter from 8.5 hours to a mere 2.5 minutes by rendering each worker completely familiar with a specific task.Figure 2-2 Robots on busy work Ford soon recognized that walking from stand to stand wasted time and created jam-ups in the production process as faster workers overtook slower ones. Unit 2 Automobile Mass Production Process In Detroit in 1913, he solved this problem by introducing the first moving assembly line, a conveyor that moved the vehicle past a stationary assembler[3]. Fords mass production drove the automobile industry for nearly five decades and was eventually adopted by almost every other industrial manufacturer. Unit 2 Automobile Mass Production Process Unit 2 Automobile Mass Production Process Raw Materials Although the bulk of an automobile is virgin steel, petroleum-based products have come to represent an increasingly large percentage of automotive components. The light-weight materials derived from petrole