Ford Finds Its Connection

Mary J. Cronin
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Mary J. Cronin: Boston College

Chapter Chapter 2 in Top Down Innovation, 2014, pp 13-24 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract Ford Motor had a problem. Workers at its state of the art assembly plant were taking too long to produce each vehicle. Top management came up with a radical innovation by rethinking the standard automotive manufacturing process. Productivity soared, with the average time to produce each vehicle speeding up from over 12 h to just 90 min. With further process improvements, Ford accelerated the pace of global production to under a minute per vehicle. This was an unprecedented level of efficiency, a change that allowed the company to reduce car prices dramatically. Lower prices meant that millions of Americans could buy their first automobile. The advantages of Ford’s manufacturing innovations were so enormous that they revolutionized the entire automotive industry. The process efficiencies were quickly copied by other manufacturing sectors generating similar productivity advances. The radical improvement that Ford pioneered back in 1913 was the moving assembly line, an invention that established Ford’s early reputation as an architect of transformation.

Keywords: Automotive Industry; Innovation Strategy; Open Platform; Power Practitioner; Social Media Marketing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:spbrcp:978-3-319-03901-5_2

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DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-03901-5_2

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