The Value of the Assembly Line in Automobile ManufactureJoin now to read essay The Value of the Assembly Line in Automobile ManufactureThe Value of the Assembly Line in Automobile ManufactureIn 1913, an innovation in automobile manufacture was born when Ford Motors experimented with winches and ropes to pull the chassis down a line while the assemblers stood in one place with their parts piles. The old process where workers moved in teams down the line, receiving their car parts from “parts runners” at each chassis as they arrived, was replaced by the automated assembly line, thus radically reducing by about 70 percent the original 17-hour labor input in the traditional moving team system. Since then, cars began to be produced with increasing flexibility and economy.
The following is a collection of articles on Automobile Manufacture from its time as an organization. These articles are based on research from our research unit in Japan and work on a number of automotive topics. Some of our previous contributions have been published on Automobile Manufacture at the International Automobile Club of Japan and the Canadian Automobile Manufacture Association. A list of contributors and links to other articles on Automobile Manufacture can be found at the Automobile Manufacture in Japan (http://www.aom.jp/ ). All articles by Japanese automakers involved in this publication are sourced from our sources. All other resources published at Automobile Manufacture have been drawn from other sources, including articles that were published in the journal Automobile Magazine in Japan, Automobile Engineering in Japan, Automobile Engineering in Japan, and Automobile Manufacture.
[quote=Elliott-McEwan, Richard]
The Value of Automobile Manufacturing
As a result, new, more efficient cars were developed. At the time, many automakers were in debt, largely due to the failure of their machines to be able to cope with the demands of the factory environment. If your car was new, you were probably able to fix that car without costing as much as you were probably able to use it for to the cost of maintenance (a typical manufacturer was spending up to $20 on maintenance. So many cars were broken, expensive, and broken until they were no longer working). But now these cars are still built. Their parts can be moved from manufacturing point of view much faster than in a modern era, allowing the cars to meet the demands of the work environment. Automobile engineers also have some of the more advanced parts that modern cars have to fulfill the needs of the work, and this makes it possible for engineers to offer the workers in a more environmentally friendly, cost-effective way than in the older, more time-consuming form of industrial competition. All this is also true with new and emerging industries. So, to a degree, the value of a car is something new for an industrial group. The value goes beyond its original purpose; it goes far beyond the standard consumerist aesthetic of “the car is new and therefore it is now worth less” and it goes far beyond the needs of the workers as a whole.
[quote=Cherrill-Fitch, Roger W]
I was not interested in a modern, high-quality American car so I said, “That’s all fine, but why doesn’t the world have one for American?” And then it went to an audience of 30,000 people. When we met with the audience, we had to make sure we told them about the value of a car. As a former automotive engineer, I was not expecting any kind of audience of people interested in high quality, high-quality American cars anymore. There are a number of companies who do not sell to mass consumers. Because their components cost so much today, they are not well suited for the American market. There are only a few high quality American cars, some that are built in the United States. That is not a problem. There are a number of others that have been built internationally, and these were built and sold in countries like China, where their quality and functionality has increased with the demand, which makes it more profitable to build those in which the components cost much more. People will like many of these car types because the price per liter doesn’t differ from the production cost per mile. But they also need reliable parts to power them. And as cars are built today, you may wonder if that is true in those days.[/quote] The value of a car is the product product of a human being’s willingness to make choices and make choices in response to those choices. When a human being makes the choice to use a car, it is made less expensive by being willing to make a choice
[quote=Elliott-McEwan, Richard]
The Value of Automobile Manufacturing
As a result, new, more efficient cars were developed. At the time, many automakers were in debt, largely due to the failure of their machines to be able to cope with the demands of the factory environment. If your car was new, you were probably able to fix that car without costing as much as you were probably able to use it for to the cost of maintenance (a typical manufacturer was spending up to $20 on maintenance. So many cars were broken, expensive, and broken until they were no longer working). But now these cars are still built. Their parts can be moved from manufacturing point of view much faster than in a modern era, allowing the cars to meet the demands of the work environment. Automobile engineers also have some of the more advanced parts that modern cars have to fulfill the needs of the work, and this makes it possible for engineers to offer the workers in a more environmentally friendly, cost-effective way than in the older, more time-consuming form of industrial competition. All this is also true with new and emerging industries. So, to a degree, the value of a car is something new for an industrial group. The value goes beyond its original purpose; it goes far beyond the standard consumerist aesthetic of “the car is new and therefore it is now worth less” and it goes far beyond the needs of the workers as a whole.
[quote=Cherrill-Fitch, Roger W]
I was not interested in a modern, high-quality American car so I said, “That’s all fine, but why doesn’t the world have one for American?” And then it went to an audience of 30,000 people. When we met with the audience, we had to make sure we told them about the value of a car. As a former automotive engineer, I was not expecting any kind of audience of people interested in high quality, high-quality American cars anymore. There are a number of companies who do not sell to mass consumers. Because their components cost so much today, they are not well suited for the American market. There are only a few high quality American cars, some that are built in the United States. That is not a problem. There are a number of others that have been built internationally, and these were built and sold in countries like China, where their quality and functionality has increased with the demand, which makes it more profitable to build those in which the components cost much more. People will like many of these car types because the price per liter doesn’t differ from the production cost per mile. But they also need reliable parts to power them. And as cars are built today, you may wonder if that is true in those days.[/quote] The value of a car is the product product of a human being’s willingness to make choices and make choices in response to those choices. When a human being makes the choice to use a car, it is made less expensive by being willing to make a choice
[quote=Elliott-McEwan, Richard]
The Value of Automobile Manufacturing
As a result, new, more efficient cars were developed. At the time, many automakers were in debt, largely due to the failure of their machines to be able to cope with the demands of the factory environment. If your car was new, you were probably able to fix that car without costing as much as you were probably able to use it for to the cost of maintenance (a typical manufacturer was spending up to $20 on maintenance. So many cars were broken, expensive, and broken until they were no longer working). But now these cars are still built. Their parts can be moved from manufacturing point of view much faster than in a modern era, allowing the cars to meet the demands of the work environment. Automobile engineers also have some of the more advanced parts that modern cars have to fulfill the needs of the work, and this makes it possible for engineers to offer the workers in a more environmentally friendly, cost-effective way than in the older, more time-consuming form of industrial competition. All this is also true with new and emerging industries. So, to a degree, the value of a car is something new for an industrial group. The value goes beyond its original purpose; it goes far beyond the standard consumerist aesthetic of “the car is new and therefore it is now worth less” and it goes far beyond the needs of the workers as a whole.
[quote=Cherrill-Fitch, Roger W]
I was not interested in a modern, high-quality American car so I said, “That’s all fine, but why doesn’t the world have one for American?” And then it went to an audience of 30,000 people. When we met with the audience, we had to make sure we told them about the value of a car. As a former automotive engineer, I was not expecting any kind of audience of people interested in high quality, high-quality American cars anymore. There are a number of companies who do not sell to mass consumers. Because their components cost so much today, they are not well suited for the American market. There are only a few high quality American cars, some that are built in the United States. That is not a problem. There are a number of others that have been built internationally, and these were built and sold in countries like China, where their quality and functionality has increased with the demand, which makes it more profitable to build those in which the components cost much more. People will like many of these car types because the price per liter doesn’t differ from the production cost per mile. But they also need reliable parts to power them. And as cars are built today, you may wonder if that is true in those days.[/quote] The value of a car is the product product of a human being’s willingness to make choices and make choices in response to those choices. When a human being makes the choice to use a car, it is made less expensive by being willing to make a choice
The State-of-the-Art BMW Plant in LeipzigThe newly-opened manufacturing plant of BMW in Leipzig, Germany boasts of a high-tech assembly line that transports the chassis from one production station to another with the speed and ease that carries with it the promise of producing the planned capacity of 650 BMW vehicles per day by 2007. Located in three buildings arranged in a circle around the open-structure central building, the assembly line production is clearly visible to all employees. This pioneering architecture not only aims to promote transparency and communication among employees, but also reflects a plant-within-a-plant principle in which the operations are divided into three smaller operating units with focused objectives, namely, (1) the construction of the main framework, (2) the paint job, and (3) the assembly of other remaining car parts.
As far as operations are concerned, the site of the youngest BMW plant offers several advantages: accessibility (geographical center of Germany) from the BMW Group’s existing supplier network; abundance in potential employees (the region has almost 20 percent unemployment rate); a relatively cooperative workers’ union (the IG Metall Union agreed to a number of BMW’s demands such as flexibility in hours in running the machines); and subsidization by the local government of as much as 30.1 percent (about $500 million) of the total investment costs (over $1.59 billion) following the full construction of the plant.
The Assembly Line and Rate of ProductionThe automotive assembly line in the BMW Plant just recently began producing the X5 SAV and Z4 Roadster. While there are slight differences between the procedures of creating the two variants, specifically with regard to the smaller segments or sub-units of the operation, the core operation flows for both cars are essentially the same. The assembly line of the two variants efficiently follow the same sequence: first, the vehicles are brought to the body shop where the small car parts are welded into the underbody by robots and assemblers; next, the cars