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The assembly line is certainly a key innovation of the early 20th Century, whose impact will continue to be felt for some time.

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There are still concerns about the welfare of workers on assembly lines such as the recent reports from China and Taiwan about working conditions on the Apple iPhone and iPad assembly lines.

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The assembly line allowed manufacturers to keep up with demand for basic goods.  Combined with new forms of distribution and retail, mass production had an enormous impact on everyday life, from cheap soap and affordable pencils to office typewriters and more affordable motor cars.

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Henry Ford used time and motion studies to increase productivity by optimising every part of the assembly line and the humans that served it.

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So what kind of innovation is an assembly line?

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So what kind of innovation is an assembly line?

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Primarily it's a process innovation.  It's undoubtedly had an impact on the way that businesses are run and on the way that they're organised, so there are elements of a business and an organisational innovation, too.

It's clearly a radical innovation but it relied on a number of technical and organisational precursors which developed incrementally over time.

Its introduction was highly disruptive, particularly for those companies that weren't willing or able to introduce the new technology.  For example, of the 200 British makes of car that had been launched from 1896 to 1913, only around half the firms were still in existence at the end of this period (when Henry Ford began mass production) and only 58 companies remained by 1929.

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The first industrial robots were introduced to the assembly line in 1962, once again for car manufacture.  They're now widely used.

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Manufacturers have explored ways to improve the experience of workers on the assembly line.*  For example, Volvo's Kalmar Plant in Sweden and the Japanese application of Kaizen to assembly lines, most famously at Toyota.

(*Or have they just been looking for ways to reduce errors and increase productivity?)

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As a result, the assembly line became a symbol for the de-humanisation of work, for example in the Charlie Chaplin film, Modern Times.

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Even the studios of the great Renaissance artists encouraged specialisation

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At the Chicago slaughterhouse of Swift & Company, carcasses were butchered as they moved along a conveyor.  This idea may have led to the introduction of assembly lines at the Ford factory in 1913...

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Eli Witney is often credited with inventing the idea of interchangeable parts in what became known as "the American System". However, the idea pre-dated Witney: Marc Brunel devised a way of mass-producing pulley blocks in Portsmouth Dockyard (1802-1808).

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Interchangeable parts are an essential prerequisite for the mass production of guns and, later, tools, sewing machines, clocks, typewriters, cars and iPads.

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https://www.britannica.com/topic/history-of-work-organization-648000/Division-of-labour-in-the-workplace
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venetian_Arsenal http://www.almyta.com/inventory_management_history_3.asp
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eli_Whitney
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ransom_E._Olds
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volvo_Kalmar_Assembly
https://www.robots.com/education/industrial-history
http://www.marketplace.org/2012/04/11/world/apple-economy/people-behind-your-ipad-workers
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automotive_industry_in_the_United_Kingdom

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Mass production requires mass consumption

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Mass production requires mass consumption

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Before the rise of retailing, the biggest buyers were governments, generally for their military (see the Venetian Arsenal above). It's no surprise, therefore, that interchangeable parts found an important early use in smalls arms manufacture.

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Increases in productivity now depended less on the individual skill of the worker and more on the rational organisation of work within the factory.

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Adam Smith gave the classic description of factory production, as applied to pins:

"One man draws out the wire; another straights it; a third cuts it; a fourth points it; a fifth grinds it at the top for receiving the head; to make the head requires two or three distinct operations; to put it on is a peculiar business; to whiten the pin is another; it is even a trade by itself to put them into the paper; and the important business of making a pin is in this manner divided into about 18 distinct operations."

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Factories combined the economic organisation of the cottage system plus mechanization (e.g. spinning machines and looms) plus new power sources (wind and, later, steam) to bring all stages of manufacture under one roof.

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Begun in 1104, the Venetian Arsenal grew to become the largest industrial complex in Europe before the Industrial Revolution.  After 1320, the Arsenale Nuovo (the New Arsenal) began producing ships using a form of assembly line.  The ships (galleys) were moved along a canal as they were being constructed.   Workers along the length of the canal specialised in various tasks and used standardised parts.  The Arsenale Nuovo could produce up to one ship per day.

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The "cottage" system - working from home, medieval-style

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The "cottage" system - working from home, medieval-style

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Merchants organised work that was conducted at home, often by families.  Individual workers no longer owned the raw materials of their labour.

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...but Ransom Olds (of Oldsmobile fame) was the first person to use a stationary assembly line to manufacture cars (starting with the Olds Curved Dash model).  He patented the concept in 1901.

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Craft guilds reached their peak in Europe in the 14th Century.   They encouraged intense specialisation: joiners, carpenters, wood turners and furniture painters were all represented by different guilds.

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The pyramids, irrigation and drainage schemes, cathedrals and cities... all required co-operation on a grand scale, laying the groundwork for mass production.

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The development of impersonal (rather than tribe-based) government and the rise of cities led to the systematic organisation of work on a larger scale than ever seen before.

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Trade in textiles, pottery, jewelry and metalwork encouraged specialisation based on abilities.

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While everyone had to lend a hand on the most important tasks, like collecting food, there were some part-time specialists even in the earliest human groupings.  For example, tool and weapon making.

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Division of labour was initially based on physical attributes such as age, gender and class (hunting vs cooking).

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Mass production = Division of labour + Specialisation + Standardisation

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Mass production = Division of labour + Specialisation + Standardisation

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The assembly line = Mass production + Mechanisation

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The assembly line = Mass production + Mechanisation