TY - GEN
T1 - Henry Ford and the Model T
T2 - 2008 ASME International Design Engineering Technical Conferences and Computers and Information in Engineering Conference, DETC 2008
AU - Alizon, Fabrice
AU - Shooter, Steven B.
AU - Simpson, Timothy W.
N1 - Funding Information:
We are very thankful to Rick Benjamin for sharing his Touring 1923 Model T. We dedicate this study to Henry Ford and to all the passionate owners of his flivver. We gratefully acknowledge the National Science Foundation through Grant Nos. IIS-0325321 and IIS-0325402. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations presented in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
PY - 2009
Y1 - 2009
N2 - Everyone knows Henry Ford's famous maxim: "You can have any color car you want so long as it's black." While he is recognized as the father of mass production, his contributions extend well beyond that, offering valuable lessons for product platforming and mass customization. While Ford's pioneering production systems arc widely known and studied, few realize that Ford's Model T could be viewed as one of the greatest platforms ever created, enabling his workers to customize this model for a variety of different markets. In this paper, we study Ford's Model T in depth and describe insights into Ford's vision and his car: how the platform was built, how it was leveraged, and how the platform was maintained dynamically and with continuous improvements to maximize learning and economies of scale. Finally, we compare Ford's approach to more current approaches to learn from his innovative product line. In some aspects this old car still runs faster than us, and we can learn valuable lessons from the past to avoid future mistakes and improve current practices.
AB - Everyone knows Henry Ford's famous maxim: "You can have any color car you want so long as it's black." While he is recognized as the father of mass production, his contributions extend well beyond that, offering valuable lessons for product platforming and mass customization. While Ford's pioneering production systems arc widely known and studied, few realize that Ford's Model T could be viewed as one of the greatest platforms ever created, enabling his workers to customize this model for a variety of different markets. In this paper, we study Ford's Model T in depth and describe insights into Ford's vision and his car: how the platform was built, how it was leveraged, and how the platform was maintained dynamically and with continuous improvements to maximize learning and economies of scale. Finally, we compare Ford's approach to more current approaches to learn from his innovative product line. In some aspects this old car still runs faster than us, and we can learn valuable lessons from the past to avoid future mistakes and improve current practices.
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M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:69949119620
SN - 9780791843253
SN - 9780791843291
T3 - 2008 Proceedings of the ASME International Design Engineering Technical Conferences and Computers and Information in Engineering Conference, DETC 2008
SP - 59
EP - 66
BT - 2008 Proceedings of the ASME International Design Engineering Technical Conferences and Computers and Information in Engineering Conference, DETC 2008
Y2 - 3 August 2008 through 6 August 2008
ER -