Taylorism In The 1920's

Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company, popularized Fordism in the 1920’s. Signifying the development of mass production and the establishment of what is now recognised as consumerism. Ford developed the model of mass production, changing the way products were manufactured, simplifying tasks and reducing the necessity for skilled workers in labour roles and introduced management positions to the manufacturing industry. A fundamental principle Henry Ford pioneered was that product manufacturing shouldn’t cost more than a product is worth, that workers were paid enough so that they could afford to purchase the products they were producing (Sayer and Walker, 1992). These principles facilitated the growth of a middle class market in post …show more content…
Ford knew that to develop a low cost, reliable mode of transportation would not be sustainable in the predeceasing specialised labour based working environment. Which inspired alternative methods of production, Ford used methods developed by Frederick Winslow Taylor, known as Taylorism (Littler, 1978). Taylor was an American engineer, who became an expert in productivity and efficiency. Taylorism incorporates the following principles to maximise productivity of procedures and individuals, therefore maximising profit margins; task analysis and process simplification, focus on training and stringent hiring procedures, a large focus was put on worker performance and wage incentives were incorporated to reward increased productivity (Littler, 1978). Ford incorporated many principles of Taylorism in his development of the Model T car, rapidly increasing the productivity of workers, gaining huge profits (Alizon, 2009). One major difference between Taylorism and Fordism, which was that Ford noticed that post war America was inundated with unskilled labourers. A fundamental element of Fordism was the change in hiring procedures, unskilled labourers working on the assembly line became the key to productivity (Alizon, 2009). The high levels of productivity, reaching 1.8 Million vehicles produced in 1923 saw large net profits for Ford, this saw the pay rate for unskilled labour increase, becoming one of the highest paid labour jobs in the country. This business model spread quickly and adapted by many manufacturing organizations across America, hiring employees for repetitive and unskilled labour practises, commonly used on assembly line production. Tasked with creating highly intricate although standard,