Assembly Line - History, Role Of Workers
step mass system production
An assembly line is a system of mass production in which a product is manufactured in a step-by-step process as it moves continuously past an arrangement of workers and machines. Introduced in the nineteenth century, it provided the basis for the modern methods of mass production of quantities of standardized, relatively low-cost goods available to great numbers of consumers. As one of the most powerful productivity concepts in history, it was largely responsible for the emergence and expansion of the industrialized, consumer-based system we have today.
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The principle of continuous movement is perhaps the simplest and most obvious fact of an assembly line, dating back to Assyrian times, where there is evidence of a
The assembly of robots at Renault in France. Photograph by Cecilia Posada. Phototake NYC. Reproduced by permission.
system of bucket elevators called the "chain of pots." Miners in medieval Europe also used these b…
Early twentieth century assembly line systems carried the concept of division of labor to an extreme and usually restricted each worker to the repetitive performance of one simple task. These individuals had few real skills, and they were not required to know any more than their basic job demanded. This human element proved to be the weakest link in the entire system. For most people, assembly lin…
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