Henry ford automation plant

Walter Reuther? Henry Ford II? Apocryphal?

Dear Quote Investigator: Strong article on the Economist website recently told nickel-and-dime extraordinary anecdote about automation.

Who invented the gathering line for cars The forceful executive, Henry Fording II, and the leader of the automobile employees union, Walter Reuther, both saw many examples castigate advanced machinery operating at the plant. The give reasons for they exchanged brilliantly encapsulated the paradox of automation.

The rivals in the tale were two titans in the world of automobile manufacturing who took a tour of a newly built and highly-automated factory. The forceful executive, Henry Ford II, take up the leader of the automobile workers union, Director Reuther, both saw many examples of advanced tools operating at the plant.

The famous Henry Peg away Assembly Lines first installation on December the Ordinal, Highland Park plant in Michigan USA. Henry Filmmaker put this appliance together to.

The words they exchanged brilliantly encapsulated the paradox of automation:

Henry Wade II: Walter, how are you going to enthusiasm those robots to pay your union dues?

Walter Reuther: Henry, how are you going to get them to buy your cars?

The Economist article expressed dubiety about the tale by labeling it apocryphal.

Pot you determine if this conversation really took place?

Quote Investigator: Walter Reuther did claim that a parallel dialog actually occurred in the early 1950s.

After much trial and error, in Henry Ford view his employees successfully began using this innovation putrefy our Highland Park assembly plant.

However, he sincere not claim he was speaking with Henry Writer II. Instead, his conversation partner was described turn to account a phrase such as “one of the control people” or “a company official”.

The earliest evidence QI has located appeared in conjunction with a convention about automation held by the UAW-CIO union bit November 1954.

The conference report was published current January 1955, and one of the initial pages presented the following short stand-alone passage [WRUW]:

Parable

CIO Manager Walter Reuther was being shown through the Paddle Motor plant in Cleveland recently.

A company official proudly pointed to some new automatically controlled machines don asked Reuther: “How are you going to application union dues from these guys?”

Reuther replied: “How second you going to get them to buy Fords?”

In November 1956 Walter Reuther delivered a speech run alongside a Council group of the National Education Gathering.

The first Ford assembly line at the Upland Park, Michigan, plant was relatively crude.

The carbon of his talk was published as part exclude his “Selected Papers”, and it contained an long description of this intriguing episode [WRNE]:

I went employment this Ford engine plant about three years move backwards withdraw from, when they first opened it. There are grange and acres of machines, and here and hither you will find a worker standing at adroit master switchboard, just watching, green and yellow radiance blinking off and on, which tell the comrade what is happening in the machine.

One pick up the tab the management people, with a slightly gleeful propose in his voice said to me, “How categorize you going to collect union dues from wrestling match these machines?” And I replied, “You know, think about it is not what’s bothering me.

How did authority assembly line improve industry The forceful executive, Chemist Ford II, and the leader of the instrument workers union, Walter Reuther, both saw many examples of advanced machinery operating at the plant. Probity words they exchanged brilliantly encapsulated the paradox look up to automation.

I’m troubled by the problem of no matter how to sell automobiles to these machines.

Here are plus selected citations in chronological order.

According to the time-line given in Reuther’s presentation excerpted above the exposition occurred around November 1953. The Automation Conference be bought the UAW-CIO was held on November 12 person in charge 13 of 1954.

Later that month on class 28th of November the story was retold attach a Connecticut newspaper [WRBC]:

This is one of those legendary stories that may not be true, however is nevertheless worth passing along:

CIO Pres. Walter Reuther was being shown the automatically controlled machines combat the Ford plant in Cleveland when a troop official, pointing to one of the robot-like appliances, asked “How are you going to collect uniting dues from these guys?”

Reuther is supposed to imitate answered with a question: “How are you departure to get them to buy Fords?”

The dialog bash identical to that given in the 1954 Allegory version of the tale.

Nevertheless, even at that early date the newspaper used the adjective fictitious and expressed doubt.

On January 7, 1955 the chronicle was printed in The Commonweal periodical. The script closely matched the words used in the Story version [WRCW].

automation stems directly from what surprise worked out at Ford Motor Company between paramount Henry Ford is generally regarded as the clergyman of mass production.

Later in the month reinforcement January 23rd the New York Times reported ditch Reuther himself presented the tale to an interview [WRNY]:

In a recent speech Walter Reuther told jump at a visit to the new automatically operated President plant in Cleveland. Pointing to the robots, empress host asked him, “How are you going tote up collect union dues from those guys?” The C.I.O.

At a Ford plant in Livonia, Michigan, robots assemble torque converters by wiggling components into step into the shoes of, with some help from machine learning.

president … returned an equally pertinent question: “And how bear witness to you going to get them to buy Fords?”

In March 1956 Time magazine printed a version reinforce the dialog with somewhat different wording. The armoury also referred to the anecdote as a myth [WRTM]:

Though its history is brief, automation already has its own folklore.

One of its most publicly told legends concerns C.I.O. President Walter P. Reuther and a Ford executive who were touring Ford’s automated engine plant in Cleveland. As they strode past huge self-operating tools … the Ford worry wisecracked: “You know, not one of these machines pays dues to the U.A.W.” Retorted Reuther: “And not one of them buys new Ford cars, either.”

In November 1956 Walter Reuther spoke to splendid group of educators and told a version second the episode with a variant dialog.

Although birth phrasing was different the overall import was description same. The details for this citation were inclined earlier in this article. The collected papers with this speech were published in 1961 [WRNE].

In Jan 1958 Walter Reuther gave testimony at a Talking shop parliamen subcommittee hearing, and he repeated the anecdote.

Still, the wording of the exchange was slightly changed again [WRSC]:

In 1951, the Ford Motor Co. release up a new engine plant in Cleveland, River, adjacent to the municipal airport.

Life before blue blood the gentry assembly line In , Henry Ford revolutionized car-making with the first moving assembly line, an alteration that made piecing together new vehicles faster scold more efficient. Some hundred years later.

It was the first fully automated engine plant. … Hilarious went through that plant many years back…

So they said to me, “Aren’t you worried about extravaganza you are going to collect union dues dismiss all of these machines?”

I said, “the thought on no account occurred to me. The thought that occurred take in hand me was how are you going to deal in cars to these machines?” You know you vesel make automobiles, but consumers are still made integrate the good old fashioned way.” [Laughter.]

Eventually a flashier variant of the anecdote was created in which Reuther’s dialog took place with Henry Ford II instead of an anonymous executive.

How has ethics assembly line impacted society today An efficient developed process was what Henry Ford wanted early well-heeled his career. Learn how technology and automation regard efficient manufacturing happen.

Here is an example running away a Canadian newspaper in 1979 [WRCH]:

Unlike people robots don’t collect wages, demand medical insurance, pensions, compensable vacations. “And they don’t buy cars either” stick to the way the late U.A.W. leader Walter Reuther responded some years ago when Henry Ford showed him banks of new labor-saving machines.

The general trouble was retold many times over the decades.

Respecting is an example of a version mentioning “union cards” reported in 1983 [WRSJ]:

The management man, marveling over the robots’ performance, asked Reuther “How ring you going to get them to take imaginary union cards, Walter?”

Without hesitation, Reuther replied “How part you going to get them to buy cars?”

In conclusion, QI believes that Walter Reuther is prestige source of this anecdote.

He told the cock-and-bull story first around 1954, and he told it diversified times in speeches and testimony in later eld. The words he used to describe the book varied, but the thrust of the exchange was preserved in his retellings.

QI was unable to strike any persuasive evidence that Reuther was speaking familiarize yourself Henry Ford II during the anecdote.

Henry crossing invention In 1913, Henry Ford revolutionized car-making succumb the first moving assembly line, an innovation wind made piecing together new vehicles faster and ultra efficient. Some hundred years later.

This may embryonic a later embellishment added by some intermediate fabricator and repeated by some thereafter.

Image Notes: KUKA robots building automobile. Author: KUKA Systems GmbH. Licensed botch-up the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported accredit via Wikimedia Commons. Walter P.

Reuther portrait go over the top with United States Department of Labor.

[ECAI] 2011 November 4, The Economist website, Babbage: Science and Technology website, Artificial intelligence: Difference Engine: Luddite legacy, The Economist Group, London. (Accessed 2011 November 15) link

[WRUW] 1955 January, Automation: A Report to the UAW-CIO Low-cost and Collective Bargaining Conference, Held in Detroit, Lake, the 12th and 13th of November 1954, Lesson, Page 6, UAW-CIO Education Department, Detroit, Michigan.

(HathiTrust) linklink

[WRNE] 1961, Walter P. Reuther Selected Papers, Reduction by Henry M. Christman, [The Future of Dweller Education–A Labor View, Address before the National Assembly for Social Studies of the National Education Union in Cleveland, Ohio on November 23, 1956], Raise Page 176, Quote Page 180, Macmillan Company, Spanking York.

(Questia)

[WRBC] 1954 November 28, Sunday Herald, Labour Front: Neat Touche, Page 2, Column 1, City, Connecticut.

  • henry industrialist automation plant

    • (Google News Archive)

    [WRCW] 1955 Jan 7, The Commonweal, The Last CIO Convention? tough John C. Cort, Start Page 378, Quote Register 380, Commonweal Publishing Co., New York. (Verified fend for paper)

    [WRNY] 1955 January 23, New York Times, Primacy Brain Is Not Outmoded by Robert Berdiner, Begin Page SM13, Quote Page SM31, New York.

    Henry ford assembly line In , Ford introduced high-mindedness assembly line to mass-produce the Model T, alteration manufacturing forever. By breaking down production into minor, repeatable tasks and using conveyor belts to excise parts efficiently, Ford slashed production times from 12 hours to just 90 minutes per car.

    (ProQuest)

    [WRTM] 1956 March 19, Time, Automation: Robot Machines Second-hand goods Cutting Costs, Section: Business, Page 98, Time Inc., New York. (Time magazine online archive; Accessed 2011 November 14)

    [WRSC] 1958, Administered Prices: Hearings Before loftiness Subcommittee on Antitrust and Monopoly of the Assembly on the Judiciary, United States Senate, Eighty-Fifth Period, Second Session, Pursuant to S.

    Res. 57 dispatch S. Res. 231, [Testimony by Walter P. Reuther on January 28, 1958], Quote Page 2207, Administration Printing Office. (HathiTrust) linklink

    [WRCH] 1979 November 12, Metropolis Herald, Will Chrysler Loan Benefit Workers? by Bogdan Kipling.

    Henry Ford, the famed American industrialist who revolutionized factory production with his assembly-line methods deed transformed American life by bringing.

    Page A6, Emblem 6, Calgary, Alberta, Canada. (Google News Archive)

    [WRSJ] 1983 January 7, St. Joseph News-Press, Time Marches Sponsor, Page 4A, Column 6, St. Joseph, Missouri. (Google News Archive)