25 Greatest Inventions of the 20th Century: The assembly line

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At the turn of the 20th century, cars were made almost completely by hand and were very expensive. But two Americans — Ransom E. Olds and Henry Ford — brought the car to ordinary people. Olds was the inventor of the Oldsmobile. He thought he could make cars cheaper by building them faster. The way to do this was through mass production. Instead of building every part of every car himself, he asked other companies to make car parts separately. When he got the parts, he put the cars together. Each part was standardized so that each Oldsmobile was the same quality. Some parts could even be swapped among Olds' car models. His assembly line began operating in 1901. Olds’ company soon became the top-selling car company in the U.S. But it was Ford who put Olds’ ideas into high gear. Olds’ assembly line was stationary, but Ford’s line — which started in 1913 — moved, pulling each car from the beginning of the line to the end. Workers stayed in the same spot and assembled the same part again and again. Ford’s innovation slashed the assembly time of his Model T car. It used to take more than 12 hours, but now each one was done 24 seconds ahead of the next one. That cut the cost almost threefold. However, you couldn’t choose a color. Ford liked to say: “You can have (the Model T) in any color, as long as it’s black.” No one is sure why, but it may be because only a black lacquer called “japan black” dried fast enough to let the line move at a quick speed. And that’s why Model T’s were black. (T) This article was provided by The Japan Times Alpha.