Topic > Assembly Line: One of the Most Significant Technological Advances of the Last Century

Arthur Erickson once said, “With manufacturing alone as its goal, North American industry was dominated by the assembly line and standardization for mass consumption. “Assembly lines are undoubtedly one of the greatest inventions of the 20th century. The institution of the assembly line changed manufacturing forever. Assembly lines have had a lasting effect on the world as a whole. For example, the assembly line still exists today and is used quite frequently throughout the world. The reasoning behind it is very simple, it's the most efficient thing the world has ever seen. The assembly line was not only efficient, but it was also beneficial to everyone involved. Of course, it has provided civilians with many job opportunities as it requires a huge amount of people to function. Since the assembly line needed large numbers of people to run it, this meant more people were getting paid and product rates were at an all-time high. Therefore, the assembly line was everything anyone could have hoped for and that is why the assembly line represents the most significant technological advancement of the 20th century. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay An important key to assembly lines is efficiency. In all large manufacturing projects, like this one, efficiency is the key to ensuring success and keeping costs low. If for some reason a Cameron 2 assembly line is too slow on a given day, it will easily cost your company money. For example, every assembly line has a goal for each day of operation. If the goal for one day is to produce 500 cars and they are short, it will cost them. The owner or manufacturer pays each of the workers to achieve this goal every day. Of course, if the target is not reached, this would mean that workers will be paid more than they should. Overall, making the company lose money. With the loss of money, over time, accumulation can and will eventually lead to bankruptcy. Therefore, it is so important to achieve the goal and be as efficient as possible every day. When an assembly line is at its best and reaching its goals, and even exceeding them, that's when it's at its best. To make money, the assembly line must always be running. When production and quality are both at all-time highs, that's when the business benefits the most. Production rates continue to rise every year. Whether it's adding a new automatic job to the assembly lines that will take away two old ones to speed up the process. Also, it could be because an item was found on the product in production that should no longer be there. This is why assembly lines are so efficient. Imagine putting a man on an assembly line or telling a man to build a car. How long would it take him to build the car from scratch? You also have to take into consideration that he is not specialized in every single area of ​​the assembly line, even if he were it would take an enormous amount of time just to specialize in each area. A single man's production rate would most likely be a few days just to produce one car. This is certainly why the assembly line was born. Productivity should have been better than it was and continues to improve today with Cameron 3. This is why, every day, manufacturers continue to improve assembly lines, making the assembly line one of the greatest advancements of its kind.Similar to efficiency, specializing in one area allows the assembly line to be just as productive and even increase efficiency. Because of the countless amounts of jobs needed for an assembly line to function, each person on that assembly line will be able to master their specific job. When each person masters their job, this will increase productivity by a huge amount. When each person is at their best and in the assigned place they have mastered, that is the day they will surpass their car goal and earn money. Staying on the topic of money, companies that use assembly lines really earn a lot. However, this was not always the case. Likewise, the product rates were also much lower. For starters, product rates were much slower than they are now. Before Henry Ford built the first assembly line, each car took about twelve hours to completely complete. Of course, with the help of the assembly line, that time was shortened. As time has gone from twelve hours to a shocking approximation of two hours and thirty minutes. The assembly line was much cheaper, more efficient and less time consuming. Many companies want these three things no matter what they do. Henry Ford achieved all three of these things with one manufacturing invention. That's why it is undoubtedly one of the greatest inventions of all time. Furthermore, if people continue to find ways to improve assembly lines, there's no telling what they'll be able to accomplish with them. Since each car is made up of around thirty thousand parts and can be made in just a few hours. It takes about twenty hours to build a car from the Cameron 4, top to bottom. If engineers can find more and more ways to lighten the car and perhaps remove some parts, it will reduce production times. Since the production time is less, the costs will be minimal. Of course, with fewer parts you will also minimize the cost needed to build the entire car. Also, since the time it takes to create the car is reduced, this means that they will be able to produce more cars every day depending on the goal of the car. Likewise, the more cars are created, the less money there will be to put them on the market, and the more money they will make overall. Closely related to the production of assembly lines, we have their failure. Imagine what life and technology would be like without them. If the first assembly line failed and the idea was completely removed from the world, what would life be like? The answer is extremely different to say the least. Like today, most of the things we use in our daily lives come from assembly lines. Whether it's things like cars or furniture. The variety of items is endless. Therefore, without the many key elements produced by today's assembly lines, who knows what life would be like. Technological advances like new cars would be nothing like they are today. Without assembly line production, most cars would still be Model T-like or even handmade by some people since they would have no other way. Although we may think that these changes are small, they would have a big impact on our lives. Transportation would no longer be the same and cars would not be as fast. Or, people who don't know how to drive would most likely not even be able to take the bus. Without transportation such as vehicles, some would not be able to participate in important functions such as education if the distance to travel was great enough. One small thing could change our lives forever. With the assembly line we are able to.