Rudolph Christian Carl Diesel was a German inventor and Mechanical Engineer famous for the invention of the Diesel Engine and his suspicious death at Sea. Diesel was born in Paris France in 1858. He was the second of three children of Elyse and Teodor diesel his parents were Bavarian immigrants living in Paris. Theodore Diesel a bookbinder by trade left his hometown of Augsburg Bavaria in 1848. He saw his wife, a daughter of a Nuremberg merchant in Paris in 1855 and evolved as a leather goods manufacturer there.

Only a few weeks after his birth diesel was given away to vincent's farmer family where he spent his first nine months when he was returned to his family. They moved into flat 49 in the Ruta la Fontaine ROI at the time, the diesel family suffered from financial difficulties thus young Rudolph diesel had to operate his father's workshop and supply leather goods to customers using Ibero. He attended a protest in french school and soon became interested in social questions and technology being a very good student at the age of 12 diesel received the sauce tape or lon struccione la montaire bronze medal and had plans to enter a cold premier superhero in 1870.

At the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War the same year his family was forced to leave as were many other Germans. They decided to stay in London where diesel attended an English school before the war stopped regardless diesel's mother sent 12-year-old Rudolph to Augsburg to stay with his aunt and uncle Barbara and Christophe Barnicle to become formal in German and to visit the koniglichi christ cure Betul, where his uncle taught him math at the age of 14.

Rudolf Diesel's interest in engineering

Diesel wrote a note to his parents expressing that he desired to become an engineer. After completing his primary education and being excellent in his class in 1873. He registered at the newly established industrial school of Augsburg two years later he obtained a merit scholarship from the royal bavarian polytechnic of Munich which he accepted against the desires of his parents who would preferably have witnessed him start to work, one of the diesel's professors in Munich was Carl von land diesel was unable to graduate with his class.

In July 1879 because he was suffering from typhoid fever while postponing the next examination date he gained practical engineering experience at the Salzer brother's machine works in Winterthur Switzerland. Diesel graduated in January 1880 with the highest academic honors and returned to Paris where he helped his former Munich professor carl von land with the layout and construction of a modern refrigeration and ice plant diesel became the director of the plant one year later. In 1883 diesel tied the knot with Martha flasch and continued to work for Varl von land achieving multiple patents in Germany and France.

An Engine that can fulfill Carnot cycle efficiency

In early 1890 diesel moved to Berlin with his wife and children Rudolf jr, Hedy, and Eugene to consider management of lin's corporate research and development department and to merge several other corporate boards there as he was not permitted to use the patents he developed while an employee of Linz for his purposes he extended beyond the field of refrigeration. Before that Karl Benz had created the first car by making history. He foremost worked with steam his research into thermal efficiency and fuel efficiency led him to construct a steam engine using ammonia vapor, during tests however the engine blasted and almost killed him.

His research into high compression cylinder pressures experimented with the strength of iron and steel cylinder heads one blasted during a run-in he spent many months in a hospital followed by health and eyesight problems ever since attending lectures of carl von land. Diesel planned to design an internal combustion engine that could cover the maximum theoretical thermal efficiency of the Carnot cycle, he also worked on this idea for several years and in 1892 he considered his theory to be finished the same year diesel was awarded the German patent drp 67207.

Innovation of Diesel Engine

In 1893 he issued a treatise entitled theory and construction of an analytical heat engine to substitute the steam engine and the combustion engines known today that he had been functioning since before 1892, this treat has developed based on his work on the innovation of the diesel engine by summer 1893 diesel had recognized that his initial thesis was incorrect which led him to file another patent application for the updated theory in 1893. Rudolf learned thermodynamics and the hypothetical and functional constraints on fuel efficiency he understood that as much as 90% of the energy left in the fuel is wasted in a steam engine. His work in engine design was operated with the goal of much higher efficiency ratios in his engine. Fuel was injected at the end of the compression stroke and was ignited by the high temperature resulting from the compression from 1893 to 1897 Heinrich von buzz director of manusc in Augsburg permitted Rudolph diesel to test and materialize his ideas.

When did the first diesel Engine Run?

The first successful Diesel Engine ran in 1897 and it has been displayed at the German Technical Museum in Munich. Rudolph Diesel received patents for his design in Germany and different countries including the U.S. he was also inaugurated into the automotive hall of fame in 1978.

The Tragic Death Of Rudolf Diesel

On the nightfall of September 29, 1913, Rudolf diesel boarded the GER Steamer SS Dresden in Antwerp (City in Belgium) on his way to a conference of the compressed diesel manufacturing company in London  He had dinner on board the ship and then headed to his cabinet about 10 p.m departing word to be called the next morning at 6:15 a.m but he was never seen alive again. In the morning his cabin was vacant and his bed had not been slept in although his nightdress was neatly spread down and his watch had been left where it could be seen from the bed. His hat and neatly folded overcoat were found beneath the after-deck railing.

10 days later the crew of the Dutch boat compelled and came upon the carcass of a man floating in the north sea near Norway. The body was in such an advanced state of decomposition that it was unrecognizable and they did not carry it aboard instead the crew retrieved personal items from the clothing of the dead man and returned the body to the sea on the 13th of October. These items were identified by Rudolph's son Eugene diesel as belonging to his father on the 14th of October 1913 it was reported that diesel's body was found at the mouth of the scalp by a boatman but he was forced to throw it overboard because of heavy climate there are different theories to describe diesel's death certain people such as his biographer Grosser and Hans Alcitauer argue that Rudolph diesel committed suicide. Another line of thought suggests that he was murdered, given his refusal to grant the german forces the exclusive rights to use his invention.

Indeed diesel boarded the SS Dresden with the intent of meeting with representatives of the British royal navy to discuss the potential of powering British submarines with diesel engines he never made it ashore. Yet the proof is limited for all explanations and his disappearance and death remain unsolved. Shortly after diesel's disappearance, his wife Martha opened a bag that her husband had given to her just before his ill-fated voyage with hints that it should not be opened until the following week. She discovered 2,00,000 german marks in cash and several economic statements hinting that their bank accounts were almost empty.

In a diary diesel carried with him on the ship for the day, the 29th of September 1913 was sketched possibly predicting death.

When did the Automotive sector adopt Diesel Engine

Development of Diesel Engine

After diesel's death, his engine experienced much development and became a very crucial alternative for the steam piston engine in many applications. The diesel engine required a fattier more powerful structure than a gasoline engine it saw restricted use in aviation. Nevertheless, the diesel engine became across-the-board in many other applications such as stationary engines agricultural machines, off-highway machinery in general submarines, ships, and much later locomotive trucks, and modern automobiles.

The diesel engine has the benefit of running more fuel-efficient than gasoline engines due to much higher compression ratios and longer duration of combustion which means the temperature rises more slowly allowing more heat to be converted to mechanical work diesel was interested in using cold dust or vegetable oil as fuel and in fact, his engine was running on peanut oil. Although these fuels were not immediately popular during the 2008 uprising fuel prices coupled with troubles about oil reserves have led to the more widespread use of vegetable oil and biodiesel the primary fuel used in diesel engines is the eponymous diesel fuel derived from the refinement of crude oil diesel is securer to store than gasoline because its flash point is roughly 175 degrees Fahrenheit higher and it will not burst.

What else did Rudolf Diesel Invent?

One more interesting thing is that Rudolph Diesel’s interests went beyond motors and fuels. He even acquired a patent on a solar-powered air engine, which makes him a more interesting pioneer of energy and technology than we may ever have known, a man before his time. He was also known as the Father of Compression Ignition.

The Automobile Engine will come and then I will assume my life's work is complete.

 The anecdote of Lamborghini takes us to the northern Italian province of Emilia-Romagna in a peaceful township of Renazzo di Cento(A place in Italy). Where poor grape farmers Antonio and Evelina Lamborghini raised their son Ferruccio in their family's vineyards. Young Ferruccio was born a Taurus (“Bull” Sign of astrology) though you'll know why it has a significant impact further. More significantly, he was born in 1916 smack dab in the middle of World War I.

Despite Ferruccio growing up to be hopeful and enterprising like most wretched Italians, during the early 20th century he had to face one crucial decision. He could either stick with his traditional occupation as a farmer or he could try to stay forward of the curve and risk-taking up factories and industrial work. For Ferruccio however, the option was obvious he was obsessed with applications of machines and could hardly be kept out of his dad's garage. This eventually led him to study mechanics and in 1935 he felt confident enough to start his own workshop. 5 years thereafter Ferruccio found himself pulled from his civilian life thanks to World war II.

How did Ferruccio acquire Experience? 

He was recruited by the Royal Italian airforce in 1940 and was allotted as a mechanic to the Garrison on the Greek island of Rhode. In the span of his duties, Ferruccio acquired valuable experience with scrapping and repurposing old machinery. In 1943 however, after Italy surrendered, a German formation forcibly took over the Garrison and expelled their former allies. 

Ferruccio could have fled but he decided to stay on as a civilian and with the authorization of the Germans, he started operating his own workshop. As much as the Germans loved Ferruccio’s technical mastery, 1945 came around, and with it arrived the Allied forces. They seized everyone in the Garrison prisoner, but after they noticed what Ferruccio could do, they got him to work fixing their vehicles for a year until they sent him home in 1946.

An opportunity turned into an Idea

Upon reaching back to Italy, Ferruccio started another short-lived workshop, but soon behind he was struck by a brilliant idea. His experience with both allied and axis vehicles gave him an advantage over most other mechanics. He knew that post-war Italy would need to increase its agricultural production to heal the damages of war, and where better to get the machinery to do so than from the extensive reserves of military equipment Mussolini's government head commission.

How did Ferruccio established Lamborgini Trattori 

Ferruccio’s ambitious plan was fixed in motion around the end of 1947 when he founded his first company. With just three other mechanics and ₺2000 (lira currency) in initial capital. Ferruccio took the large-scale production of affordable tractors into his hands. His main supplier was an ARAR(Azienda Rilievo Alienazione Residuati), a government-owned company responsible for selling all the extra military equipment left behind in the war. By taking an old British Morris engine and modifying it to run on cheap diesel instead of costly petrol Ferruccio created a groundbreakingly reasonable-priced tractor that could trade all across Italy. This was to be the foremost of his 'Carioca' unveiled on February 3rd, 1948 and Italy went nuts over them.

The design was so successful that Ferruccio started a second company Lamborghini Trattori(Tractor company), where he hired 4 new workers, purchased a factory in Cento(Place in Italy), and borrowed ₺10 million(lira currency), backed by his family's grapes farm to purchase hundreds of Morris, Perkins, and dodge engines from ARAR. He also arranged to enter of prestigious endurance race called Mille Miglia, he drove his rebuilt Flat Topolino, but he collided beside a restaurant and gave up racing for the rest of his entire life. Despite his company doing excellent, by 1950 Trattori had a workforce of 30 people and could produce upwards of 200 tractors per year. Demand was rising rapidly and so in 1951, Ferruccio acquired 1000 M2(Meter square) of land upon which he built a new factory. 

1951 saw the introduction of the L33 tractors whose rage would greatly satisfy the government allowance to farmers who used domestically built machinery. After assigning a deal with Motorenwerken Mannheim for their diesel engines, Lamborghini could now create tractors completely on their own. Ferruccio's new factory produced its first tractor in 1956 and by that point, he could simplify his engine design around three tiers of HorsePower. Ferruccio even traveled across the Atlantic to purchase heating and air conditioning technologies from the US. By the early 1960s, Lamborghini’s tractor factory had 400 employees stirring out as many as 30 tractors a day. Some of their most prominent developments during the time were a series of air-cooled tractors engines and even helicopter concepts though the government never supported them. In 1961 Ferruccio disclosed an independent oil heater factory and by that point, he was so wealthy that he decided to satisfy his love of sports cars.

How Enzo Ferrari's Insult led Ferrucio to create a car that was better than Ferrari

Being a learned mechanic himself, Ferruccio was very imperative of any engineering faults he found in any cars he owned. Among them are two Alfa Romeos, two Maseratis, a Jaguar E-type, a Mercedes Benz, and of course several Ferraris. The Ferraris most appealed to Ferruccio whereas he found them to be needlessly noisy and thought they had a scanty interior. He was largely aggravated by the bizarre tendency of the Ferraris to constantly have a clutch breakdown. 

After finally getting unhappy with all these restoration bills Ferruccio took the problematic vehicle directly to Modena, where he personally confronted Enzo Ferrari regarding the clutches. According to Ferruccio, Enzo basically brushed him off and told him to stick to driving tractors. That's not terribly surprising coming from the guy who fired most of his senior staff when they grumble about his wife but Ferruccio saw it as a challenge.

How was Automobili Lamborghini founded?

He was well familiar with the returns to be had in the grand tourism industry so in 1963 the tractor tycoon launched an automobile factory near Sant’Agata(Place in Italy). Thus, out of the primordial urge to give Enzo a reply. Ferruccio created a car named Automobili Lamborghini. For the brand's logo, he choose a bull, after all, it was his own astrological sign, and also had a deep infatuation with bullfighting. This preferably fearsome creature proved to be a proper representation of Lamborghini’s company as a head through milestone year after year.

Which was the first Lamborghini?

The first functional Lamborghini GT350 was built in 1964 with the support of young engineer Paolo Stanzani. It integrated some extremely amazing technology including a v12 engine, 5-speed transmission, 4-wheel disc brakes, and four-wheel independent suspension. Creating the GT 350 was complicated and its prototype suffered from some serious design flaws that were made very apparent during its streamed entry into the 1963 auto show in Turin. The most considerable issue was the fact that the engine itself would not even accommodate within the car's body panel. Ferruccio’s solution was to seal the compartment with bricks and to keep the cover shut at all times. After all the show was all about glimpsing at cars, not driving them.

In the end, the GT 350 was a technical masterwork and gardened complimented by critics and customers alike. 1966 got the 400 GT and Miura P 400. The Miura was especially renowned for setting the Rear mid-engine layout as the benchmark for all high-performance cars of the era, a standard that is still beneficial today.  It was initially developed as a street racing vehicle by a team of fierce engineers directed by Marcello Gandini they kept this project mysterious from Ferruccio since he was against creating race cars due to his own racing incident in 1948. When Ferruccio understood the new design, he was fascinated enough not to discard it but he folded down his no-racing policy. 1968 Saudi Espada established itself as one of Lamborghini's most eminent classics along with the libero 400 GT. The company continued its successful Spot, debuting renowned models like the Countach LP 500, the Urraco P250, and the Jaramaa 480 GTS.

Evolution of Lamborghini from fall to rise

Crisis on Lamborghini

The 1970s however would be a problematic time for Lamborghini. In 1970 two years after the abolition of the Bretton woods system, the global stock market underwent a dramatic crash with the dove erasing nearly half of its value. And the same time OPAEC(Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries) started an oil embargo, which greatly lifted the price of fuel and the automotive world into its own emergency. As if all of that wasn't enough Lamborghini Trattori was also hurt when a deal to provide bolivia with 5000 tractors was canceled after the 1971 coup by Hugo Banzer. Ferruccio did his best to protect his various enterprises alive. He eventually found buyers for the unsold tractors and he also relocated his oil heater factory to Dosso in Nigeria in the end though he was forced to sell shares of Lamborghini to outside investors to outlast his business from bankruptcy. The crisis broke Ferruccio and although he managed to save Lamborghini he retired in the face of across-the-board strikes and unionization that had spread across Italy.

In 1973 he sold the Trattori company to another Italian tractor manufacturer. A year later he sold his remaining 49% stake in Automobili Lamborghini to a Swiss businessman named Rene Leimer. A friend of Rene had previously bought the remaining 51% and together they hope to revive the brand. Despite their tries, they failed, and ultimately, Automobili Lamborghini was forced into liquidation. In 1980 Italian government sold Lamborghini for $3 million to the Mimran brothers to French entrepreneurs who owned immense sugarcane farms and Flour Mills in Africa. The brothers had ambitions to renovate all Lamborghini facilities and form a new team of engineers, but they soon ran over funding and ended up selling the company.

Lamborghini into the hands of Chrysler and then Volkswagen

In 1987, Lamborghini went into the hands of Chrysler who wanted to import the luxury car brand into the United States. Less than 5 years later yet Lamborghini still hadn't gained profits so Chrysler sold it to Indonesian Conglomerate. The Indonesian actually handled to restore the brand moderately and in 1996 Lamborghini made a modest profit of $120000, As luck would have it in 1998 an economic crisis knocked Asia, and Lamborghini got sold again. 

This time the buyer was Ferdinand Piech of Volkswagen who had bought a Bentley and Bugatti the same year. Under the paternal care of Volkswagen Lamborghini found its structure heavily streamlined. This allowed it to finally regain its place in the luxury sports car market. 

To fulfill the challenges of the 21st century Lamborgini started aggressively marketing its brand name while all the same time funding heavily into material research and development. They have diversified their cars to demand a broader range of budgets even though their most subordinate price is still prohibitively costly to the average. The Pinnacle of victory for the modern Lamborghini is undoubtedly the Gallardo which has throughout its 10-year production runs sold barely over 14,000 units thus evolving Lamborginis’s most popular design ever.

Rise of Lamborgini

2015 marked the most profitable year of the company's history as the sales jumped from simply over 2500 to 3000 cars. They've already manufactured other heavy hitters such as the Urus SUV concept of the Huracan, inheritor of Gallardo. So far it seems that Lamborghini’s game of corporate hot potato has finally reached an end, at least for the time being. It's safe to articulate that if Ferruccio could witness his company now, he would be satisfied that Lamborghini is once again recreating the red flag to Ferrari’s Bulls.

As the cars will be electric in the coming years, Lamborghini is planning to launch its first-ever electric supercar in the coming year 2027.

 The Ford  Model T was not the first car. Not even close. Depending on how you define what a car is, that honor was achieved hundred years before Henry Ford was even born in 1769 when the French engineer Nicholas Joseph Cugnot created the first steam-powered vehicle design to travel on rail. The owner of the first true automobile goes to Karl Benz founder of Mercedes-Benz in 1885 with a single Piston 2-stroke gasoline-powered vehicle. The art of the automobile was well underdeveloped before Henry Ford hit the scene.

No Ford did not invent the automobile he invented something much more profound. He created modern society. He instituted the modern assembly. That is a massive part but bear with me. His manufacturing techniques did not just revolutionize how he design and build everything. Making complicated machinery like tractors and cars affordable for the masses. His manufacturing techniques entirely changed the trajectories of millions of people's careers.

At the turn of 18-century craft, manufacturing was the high status defined by a highly-skilled workforce. People wishing to pursue a career in Automotive manufacturing entered this career and progressed through an apprenticeship. Picking up a used variety of skills gradually learning the tricks of the trade and being masters of their craft. Many would go on to run their private machine shops. There were fewer employees and more contractors. 

In those times a machine like an automobile was not produced completely in-house. Parts would come from smaller machine shops from all across the city. They used general-purpose tools and machines to create the path needed which would send to the final assembler. The parts would vary massively from batch to batch, requiring a scaled assembling team.

Did Ford's mass manufacturing Affect small machine shop owners?

Workers were required to learn the function of the part they were working on and skillfully manage the parts together into the final vehicle. There was neither mass manufacturing of the complex machines. Each vehicle was one of a kind, commissioned by whoever was prosperous enough to buy it. At this production volume, no company could create a monopoly. There were several small crafts shops across Western Europe and North America but many would soon occur run out of business by Henry Ford before they had the chance to adopt his mass manufacturing technique. 

Only the most high-grade craft manufacturers sustained. Companies like Aston, Martin, and Bentley succeeded by concentrating on the ultra-wealthy that could have to afford this one of the vehicles using skillful craftsmen to develop unique and posh cars, but even they would soon have to join the inclination to survive. All eventually acquired by these mass production powerhouses were no longer able to keep up with the cost of innovation and manufacturing required to keep pace in the automotive industry. At the high point of Model T’s success in 1923, Ford was manufacturing 2.1 million Model T’s a year, a figure that would only be matched by a single-vehicle Model again with a VW Beetle. Many people were shocked by Henry Ford’s success down to its inflexibility in design. The famous quote of Henry Ford is, “you can have any color as long as it is black”. This was true for many years but perhaps not for the reason you think. You see Henry Ford was captivated by manufacturing speeds. The painting process he used, allowed the paint to dry speedily and it was only available in black at the time. He saved time wheresoever possible to achieve that impressive milestone of 2.1 million Model T's a year.

The Model-T was not a coincidence, it was the top of over 20 design iterations over 5 years. Each one tweaked the design and manufacturing procedure to cut seconds off the total process, the innovations resumed through the almost 20 years of production that would see a total of 15 Million Model T manufactured. Ford worked all his life to learn the skills he needed to achieve this goal.

Beginning production for Model T in 1908, the average task cycle of the Model T lasted 514 minutes. The task cycle time is the time before a single task is repeated. So the mediocre worker did not recur the task for 8 and half hours. For Ford, this was essentially how fast a single production line was producing vehicles as an assembly line cannot start a new vehicle until another has existed at the other end. So he set to work on reducing that cycle time and by the year 1913, he managed to bring it down by just 2.3 minutes. For a product this complex consists of hundreds of parts with hundreds of processes that is astounding and were something, no other company had ever accomplished.

How on earth did Ford achieve quantum Leap Forward in manufacturing speed?

Let's first start with innovations that Ford was not responsible for that allowed him to begin this journey. 

One of the causes, that highly skilled workers were essential to this industry before Ford came along was the high variability between parts. In engineering, there is a technical term for it called “Tolerancing”.

For Example, A Design Engineer is needed to specify the tolerances, and need for the specific part feature. Say a shaft is needed to fit a precise hole we need to define how much the machinist is permitted to differ from the listed dimension. If we have a 20 mm hole pared with a 19mm shaft and we specify that both can deviate from the dimension by ± 0.5 mm. Even at the extreme ends of both where both are 19.5 mm wide, they will still fit with some force. This may not be acceptable depending on the application and higher tolerancing may be needed which generally means an increase in cost. 

Engineers regularly screw up with these things even today but during Ford’s days, they consistently succeeded in intolerance that tight and mass manufacturing would have been used task and was generally something saved for military applications and not for low-cost consumer products. This was largely due to the mass manufacturing techniques of the day, specifically heat treatment methods. As we know metals are needed to be heated and cooled in specific ways to strengthen or Harden them, this makes the metal much harder to cut and shape, the metal was often cut first and heated and treated after. This heating and cooling induce the metal to deform due to thermal expansion which can then throw the original piece out of tolerance. This is called warping and it made it nigh on impossible to get a consistent final product.

Many blame Ford for revolutionaries arising the standardization of parts but in truth, “he was simply at the right place at the right time to benefit from Technologies that facilitated him”. New methods for cutting and Stamping pre-hardened metal provided Ford to eliminate much of this variability due to warping. Advancements in Precision measurements and manufacturing allowed Ford to be confident. Parts would be interchangeable and in turn, this allowed him to defend his vehicles in a way that reduced costs. This was the rise of destruction for the craft manufacturing industry and the beginning of a movement that would change the face of modern society.

Competitors of Ford working manually to make an engine block

While his competitors were casting each cylinder of the engine block individually and bolting them together due to the hassle of casting a single part with multiple holes that needed to line up precisely. Forecasting a single complex engine block drastically reduced the time required to manufacture and assemble it. This of course headed to incredibly expensive dedicated machinery needed to manufacture a single piece of the vehicle. In the world of craft manufacturing, a skilled worker could use a general-purpose tool and skillfully use it to produce the final product. 

Inside the world of mass manufacturing, this was not acceptable. It took too long and required skilled workers who were too difficult to replace. For example engine blocks consist of the upper and lower part that needs to be made correctly to maintain a seal for engine compression. Ford’s competitors like Cadillac practiced using a single flexible milling machine to create a flush surface on both the upper and lower half of the engine block. Engine blocks and heads were overloaded and milled slowly and precisely one at a time.

Ford used a milling machine to make engine heads!

Ford instead created a dedicated machine to mill engine blocks and engine heads separately. 15 and 30 at a time respectively. The worker simply snapped the unmilled pieces into a tray while the previous lot was built and then pushed the tray into the place when the time came. A worker could be trained in 5 minutes to do this task. They didn't need to speak the same language as the person next to them they didn't need to think about anything else. Just supply the machine. These people had a single purpose this of course resulted in versatility in design. The cost of starting an entirely new Model vehicle was drastically increased. This is why even today that car brand tends to iterate on old design rather than introduce entirely new models, it's simply too expensive and time-consuming to retrofit entire production lines. When Ford eventually decided to completely redesign the Model T and produce Model A, these machines were thrown out but had achieved his goal cycle time was lowering and there was still scope to improve. Ford managed to half-cycle time from 2.3 minutes to 1.2 minutes with his next innovation.

How was the moving assembly line introduced?

When production first started on the Model T employees worked from stationary work stands if needed a part or tool they would get up and get it themselves. Ford soon recognized the waste and introduced dedicated stock suppliers whose only job was to ensure that other workers had the parts they needed to keep production running at a constant pace. Where possible these employees were replaced with automated supply lines.

This idea grew and involved in the introduction of Ford’s greatest manufacturing innovation “the moving assembly line”, a manufacturing technique still in use today even for huge machines like planes. This method introduces a sense of urgency to the factory floor and even looming deadlines to complete your work before the plane reaches the next production step. If there is a critical problem the entire production line will completely stop until expect.

From where did Ford develop the Assembly Line Idea?

Ford was not the first to introduce such an idea. They had been used in the simple production lines for the butchering of carcasses and food preparation before but never forever, but never for anything this complex and Ford applied it as a science. Used his engineering skills to help find pioneer a new branch of engineering “Industrial engineering” a branch of engineering mostly concerned with optimizing the Logistics of manufacturing.

Idea Migration overseas

The moving assembly line drives all workers to work at the same pace, more lasting workers cant produce items faster than they are needed and more inactive workers can’t slack off. Ford’s innovation launched the Ford motor company to International success but that dominance could not last forever. Companies came from all over the world to observe Ford factories. They wondered how the factory itself was like a finely tuned machine each part feeding into the other. They took their lessons home and by 1955 mass manufacturing had propagated around the world. And forthwith companies outside the US were not just overtaking up the big three of Detroit. Ford, General Motors, and Cadillac surpassed their capabilities far better. 

The most reputable Toyota in the post-world war in Japan led the change in manufacturing through a new manufacturing philosophy “Lean manufacturing”. That would lead to Detroit's eventual demise. Detroit would soon become a phantom town and just as these companies viewed their Machines as disposable they viewed their workers as disposable. Dropping them the moment demand tanked. 

This problem has only gotten worse. Zero Hour contracts and strict control of unions are standard. Ford paid his worker incredibly well for the time but that meant little when the demand dropped and these workers at few Transferable skills to gain new employment. For better or worse Ford’s innovations completely changed the job market for billions of people.