Manufacturing History Notes

Historical Marks of Manufacturing

Introduction

  • The vast majority of objects in our daily lives are products of manufacturing.
  • Manufacturing steps can be summarized into six groups according to the German norm DIN8580:
    • Cutting: To cut off a part from an object.
    • Changing material properties: To change the properties of a material.
    • Joining: To merge or assemble one or more objects into a new object.
    • Coating: To cover the surface of an object with a firmly attached previously formless mass.
    • Casting and Molding: To give shape to a previously formless mass.
    • Forming: To change the shape of an object without adding or removing parts.

The Stone Age

  • Cutting: Example: Early stone age axe (more than 2 million years ago).
  • Changing Material Properties: Examples: Annealing, Hardening, Hardening wood spear tip (164,000 to 72,000 years ago).
  • Joining: Examples: Welding, Screwing, Stone head attached to arrow shaft (70,000 years ago), Gluing, Spear Thrower (22,000 years ago).
  • Coating: Examples: Painting, Physical Vapor Deposition, Galvanizing, Chauvet cave (30,000 years ago).
  • Casting and Molding: Examples: Casting, Sintering, Injection, Venus of Dolni (25,000 years ago).
  • Forming: Examples: Extrusion, Bending, Deep drawing, Coper pendent (10,000 years ago).

The Urban Revolution

  • Neolithic revolution: Mankind goes from nomadic to settled farmers.
    • New tools for agricultural purposes.
    • No evidences of labor division.
  • The bronze age
    • Several inventions: plough (6000 BC), irrigation (5000 BC), sailboat (4800 BC), wheel (4500 BC).
    • Increase in food production lead to the emergence of the first cities (Uruk population up to 50 000).
    • Some members of society don’t need to focus on food production. New full time occupation arise (leadership, warfare, religion, transport, trade and … manufacturing).
    • First evidences of specialization and division of labor.
    • Artisans.

Antiquity

  • Breaking the energy constraint – Animal, water and wind power
    • Domestication of animals during the Neolithic revolution.
    • Use of water (floats and boats) for transportation.
    • Need to transform one direction energy in rotary or back and forth motion (necessary for manufacturing).
  • New technologies
    • Windmills.
    • Watermills.
    • Presses.
    • Looms.
  • Accumulation of knowledge
    • Writing.
  • Roman empire
    • Numerous innovation and development in architecture, warfare, logistics and agriculture.
    • Absence of innovation related to manufacturing, except for food production.
    • Evidences of division of labor and work flow consideration (baking process, for example).
  • Cicero's view on labor: Manual labor and mechanics were considered vulgar and unbecoming to a gentleman.

Middle Ages

  • The rise of towns
    • Chaos following the fall of the Roman Empire.
    • Social and cultural changes.
    • Increased competition.
    • Social standing of merchants and artisan increased dramatically.
    • Further development of food processing technology (farmer productivity increased by over 50%).
    • Moving from slavery to serfdom (incentive to work harder and smarter through the development of new techniques).
  • Increased productivity
    • Rise of towns.
    • Advances in agriculture.
    • Labor-saving devices.
    • Widespread of water and wind mills.
    • Improved loom technology.
    • Spinning wheels.
    • Printing press.
    • Weelbarrow…
  • Productivity per person increased by 30% between 1350 and 1500.
  • Manufacturing was still very much based on individual craftsmen working in small groups.

Early Modern Europe

  • Changes in society
    • Arrangement of city states merged into modern centralized governments.
    • Mercantilism became popular.
    • Emergence of modern science (measuring things and understanding the law of nature).
  • Manufacturing technology
    • Mainly in food processing.
    • And textiles (numerous improvements in spinning, weaving and knitting tools).
    • For example in 1589 William Lee invented the knitting machine that was 10 time faster than a human knitter.
  • Emergence of the factory
    • Change from the putting-out system to the factory (end of the XVIII Century).
    • Small number of workers working in small workshops to factories that pooled together hundreds of workers at one location under one management.
    • Increased productivity.
    • By the end of the XIX Century the output from small workshops was insignificant compared to factories.
  • Advantages of the factory (Concentration of labor):
    • Higher division of labor – each worker responsible for a single production step.
    • Use of minimal training and cheaper worker.
    • Reduction of scrap rate.
    • Larger production capacity, thus purchases of lager quantities of raw materials.
    • Lower prices.
    • Larger production scale implies more attention to optimize production.
    • Entrepreneurs had very good business sense – Example cost accounting.
    • Creation of a material flow passing through the different stages of production.
    • Less stock.
    • Tighter control of the worker.
    • Increased power of capital over labor.
  • Problems with the workers:
    • Idleness, absence and theft was usual.
    • Authoritarian management.
    • Employers and manufacturing owners not very skilled at managing people.
    • Education, training and skill focused on the technical tricks of their trade.
  • First factories were as diverse as the entrepreneurs who established them and the product they made. Several measures needed to run a factory were invented in this first factories
  • The Arsenal of Venice:
    • The first factories were established not in order to become more profitable but, rather, because there was no way to produce a certain product in small workshops.
    • The Arsenal of Venice (Shipyard) was established around 1104.
    • In 1320 it produced about 6 ships per year.
    • At is peak (XVI Century) it was the largest industrial complex in Europe, employing up to 16000 workers, able to produce 100 ships in two months.
    • New ship production technologies.
    • Ship came to worker rather than worker to ship.
    • Improved material flow.
    • Division of labor and specialization.
    • Payment by presence.
  • Economies of scale – The Ironmonger Ambrose Crowley (1658-1713):
    • Main activity Iron products (from nails to anchors), main costumer the British Navy.
    • At a given point he supplied 90% of the iron needs of the British Navy.
    • About 1000 workers and two large waterwheels in different sites.
    • Payment by pieces.
    • Operation of the business near the costumer (London) about 400 Km from the production sites.
    • Establishment of work rules “Law book of Crowley Ironwork”.
    • Novel way to relation with workers.
    • Sickness payment, free medical treatment, schooling for the young, support for widows and orphans.
    • Establishment of committees and councils to arbitrate disputes.
    • Pioneer in labor relations.
  • Science of manufacturing processes – The Potter Josiah Wedgwood (1730-1795):
    • Going from a small workshop with 15 workers to 300 workers in two locations.
    • Conduction of scientific experiments to improve his wares (gaining competitive advantages, essentially with higher classes customers).
    • Establishment of cost accounting, both for product and processes.
    • Use of the first clocking-in system to track worker attendance.
    • Application of labor division and process flow.
  • Mechanization – John Lombe (1730-1795) silk mill:
    • Utilization of dozens of large spinning machines.
    • 200 to 400 workers.
    • Industrial espionage.
    • Marvel in productivity…
    • but to the workers, that was the most unhappy of their life.
    • The Cromford cotton mill – Full-scale mechanization (1772).
  • Human relations – The Montgolfier paper mill: Possibly the first manufacturing operation with labor relations similar to modern factories.
    • Rules for hiring and firing, payment, bonuses, promotion and discipline.
    • Fixed workdays (4:00 AM to 7:15 PM).
    • 300 working days per year (average by the time was 200 workdays per year).
    • Follow orders of foreman.
    • Payment based on the time worked rather than on the number of pieces produced (better quality).
    • Reliable and skilled workers received higher wages.
    • Stability in production and, thus, time for annual maintenance and daily cleaning of tools.

The Rise of Steam Engines

  • Steam engine:
    • First patented in 1698.
    • 1712, first steam engine that converted steam into mechanical movement (Thomas Newcomen).
    • 1775, James Watt steam engine, using ¼ of the fuel for the same work.
    • Insignificant for manufacturing purposes before 1780.
    • Expensive installation.
    • Constant supply of expensive fuel.
    • Highly trained experts required to run the engine.
    • Low reliability.
    • Provided only back and forth movement.
  • Continuous improvement of steam engine technology:
    • 1779 first steam engine to provide rotary motion.
    • 10000 steam engines in Great Britain by 1850 (30000 waterwheels).
    • Average power of 50 horsepower.
    • 1870 steam engines becomes more prominent than waterwheels.
    • By 1884 power increased to 130000 horsepower.
  • The Soho factory – First engineering workshop
    • Very well organized and analyzed.
    • Understanding of the organization process.

Power Goes Mobile - Railways

  • Steam engine changed manufacturing by providing a power source that was scalable and independent of local sources.
  • Combined with mechanization, productivity increased multifold.
    • Example: By the end of XVII century spinning was much more time consuming than weaving; Mechanized spinning machine changed this scenario making weaving the bottleneck; Problem solved by the development of power loom (1784); Spinning and weaving mills were now able to produce enormous quantities of cloth, by far exceeding local demand.
    • Problem was now the transport: Transport by roads expensive and unsafe; limited capacity of canals.
  • Improvement in steam engine allow for the development of steam train.
    • First public railway, 1825, 40 Km.
    • First intercity railway, 1830, Manchester-Liverpool, 50 Km.
    • Fixed timetable.
    • By 1860 there were more than 15000Km of railway track in Britain.
  • Consequences:
    • Lower transport cost.
    • Bigger markets.
    • Larger factories.
    • Economy of scale.

New Industries and Steel

  • Steam engine was the kickoff for a whole set of new industries:
    • Steam engine pumps water and powers mills that need coal, this leads to increased production quantities.
    • Railways to transport coal, which increases the demand for coal, leading to more demand for iron.
    • Stem engines and railways need more coal.
    • The production of steam engines and railways lead to new inventions such as Typewriters, Bicycles, and Sewing machines.
    • Labor saving devices are implemented and this frees manpower to develop and build new technologies
    • Self-accelerating system.
  • Interchangeable parts
    • Lower cost of iron and steel.
    • More products made out of metal, especially suited to mechanical devices: Manufacturing machines, Winches, Clocks, Guns.
    • Metal working technology still in its infancy not able to make identical parts (similar but not identical).
    • Problems for final assembly and parts changes.
    • The rise of fitters.

Interchangeable Parts

  • The French Army buys muskets from a large number of gun masters; Wide variety of incompatible weapons; Difficulties in field repairs; Difficulty in supplying ammunitions of the correct caliber.
  • 1763 “Gribeauval system”; Standard gauges for the construction of artillery carriages; Strict standards for the production of cannons and cannon balls; First attempts to use the same approach for muskets.
  • Portsmouth pulley block manufacturing. Machinery for block production
  • Springfield and Harpers Ferry armories – The American system of manufacturing.
    • Interchangeability driven by the U.S. Army; “Any firm subject to the market force of supply and demand would not have been able to produce interchangeable parts”; It took 30 years to reach truly interchangeable parts.
    • John Hancock Hall (1781-1841); Focused on precision; Development of an extensive system of gauges; Invention of bearing points; High precision machinery (Cast iron frames); New machine technology.

Modern Ages (1850 – 1950)

  • Electricity provided a highly flexible and versatile power source.
  • New technologies in machining and metalworking.
  • New materials, like plastic replaced wood and metal.
  • Mechanization: (1) assembly lines and (2) robotics.
  • Manufacturing management moved from trial and error toward science.
  • Electricity changed the manufacturing workplace:
    • Dark, damped and humid environment, including lots of moving parts, changed to brightly lit workplace.
    • Increased quality, since electric motors provided a more stable source of movement.
    • Increased productivity: electric motor cheaper than steam power and have a wider range of application.
    • Larger factories, no problem with power transport.
  • Benefits also for smaller factories:
    • Low initial investment – You pay what you use.
    • New technologies based on electricity: Electrolysis – Alluminium, Electroplating, Welding.

New Manufacturing Technologies

  • Standard screws and bolts
  • Plastic and rubber.
    • 1840 – Vulcanization.
    • 1860 - Celluloid.
    • 1872 – Injection molding machine.
  • Machine technology
    • 1797 – Extrusion.
    • 1849 – Die casting.
    • 1855 – Centrifugal casting (Artillery shells).
    • 1836 - Shaper.
    • Around - 1800 lathes for metals.
    • 1861 – True tool steel machines.
    • Grinding machines…

Science Meets the Shop-Floor

  • “Throughout history, humanity made significant advances in technology. Yet, the organization lags far behind. The goals of the workers, the managers and the shareholders still diverge significantly. It took until around 1900 for the problem to be at least studied, much less solved.”
  • Until the end of the XIX century, coordinating work on the shop floor was based purely on experience.
    • Wages were set by the supervisors or owners as low as they could get away with.
    • Production quantities depended on the mood and the speed of the worker.
    • The only mathematical element on the shop-floor was basic cost accounting.
    • There were little understanding of the relations between work, time and cost.
  • ASME (American society of Mechanical Engineers) was founded in 1880 and was the leading institution on shop-floor management.
  • Some publications: Henry Metcalfe – “The cost of manufacture and the administration of workshops” (1885), Henry Towne – “The engineer as economist” (1886), Joseph Slater Lewis – “Commercial organization of factories” (1896), Francis Burton – “The commercial management of engineering work” (1899).

Frederick Taylor

  • Considered the “father” of scientific management; Main responsible for bringing scientific management into practical use.
  • Taylor system
    • Time study, breaking down the task into individual steps.
    • Discard unnecessary tasks.
    • Adjust time for problems and deviation.
    • Adjust time for rest and breaks.
  • Principles
    • Replace rule of thumbs with methods based on a scientific study of the tasks.
    • Scientifically select, train and develop each employee.
    • Provide detailed instruction and supervision of each worker.
    • Divide work equally between managers and workers, the first ones to apply scientific management principles to planning the work and the later ones to actually perform the tasks.
  • Legacy
    • He was the first to integrate the scientific approach of measuring and analyzing into management.
    • He was the first to separate the process of managing work form the actual work.
    • He was the first management guru and his book sold millions of copies.
    • The works of Taylor found is way into academic teaching.
    • But Taylor did not see the value of worker’s creativity.
    • Already during is lifetime, his approach was criticized. Taylorism was called “tyranny of the clock” and was considered dehumanizing.
  • Further progress in scientific management
    • Scientific management continued to develop, and numerous researchers contributed to this topic.
    • Carl Bath enhanced Taylor’s work on cutting speeds.
    • Henry Gantt brought a much more cooperative approach to scientific management, but he is by is famous visualization of project steps (The Gantt Chart).
    • Franck and Lillian Gilbreth – Motion studies, industrial psychology and human fatigue (ground for ergonomics).
    • Elton Mayo - Human relations movement.
    • Walter Shewart – Statistical Quality Control.
    • Agner Erlang – Queuing theory.
    • Based on Taylor’s initial work, many different fields of research emerged: Industrial psycology, Operations research, Statistical quality Control, Industrial engineering.

Mass Production

  • Consumer products: Within a short period after 1880 numerous fully automated process appeared:
    • Cigarette rolling machine (1881) – Able to roll 120 000 cigarettes a day (equivalent of 40 skilled workers).
    • Matches (1881) – automated machine able to produce 30 000 matchboxes per day (before 4 000 matchboxes per day manually).
    • Tin cans (1890) – 3 000 cans per hour (60 cans per hour per worker manually).
    • By late 1900 automated production reach a large spectrum of products: Soap, Photography film, Sugar, Beer, Chewing gum.
  • Several complex products were mass produced by late 1900: Sewing machines, Typewriters, Bicycles.
  • 1860-1870: Nicolaus Otto developed the four-cycle internal combustion engine; Shortly after, Dugald Clerk invented the two-cycle engine; Finally, in 1893, Rudolf diesel invented the diesel engine.
  • Carl Benz invented the first true automobile, a tricycle powered with a two-stroke gasoline combustion engine.
  • Within a few years there were hundreds of car companies around the world; Making customized cars for wealthy gentlemen; Mostly designed and build individually, based on costumer specifications; Assembly included lots of filing down parts until they fit; Very expensive process.
  • But, due to the success of sewing machines, typewriters and bicycles, there were a large number of workers, foreman and technicians skilled in metalworking, mass production and interchangeable parts.
  • Hence the automotive industry moved rather quickly from a craft-based system to mass production.

Henry Ford and His Model T

  • Ford Motor Company established in 1903; Team of 15 workers in a spots to assemble the car (piles of materials); Craft type production.
  • He made several experimentations to improve productivity: One worker per car, instead of a team of 15 workers; Material periodically supplied by other workers; Flow oriented layout (1906); Single purposed machines.
  • 1908, Ford introduce the famous model T
  • Model T was designed for easy manufacturing and low cost; Less than 100 different part numbers; Simplification of the supply chain and production process; Interchangeability of components; Easy reparation.
  • Assembly line (1913).
  • Assembly line brought impressive productivity improvements:
    • Magneto line (time reduction 20 to 5 min.).
    • Front axel (time reduction 150 to 26,5 min.).
    • Engine (time reduction 594 to 226 min.).
    • Final assembly (time reduction 12,5 hours to 93 min.).
  • A car left the assembly line every 40 seconds.
  • 10 times less workforce for the same output; Lower required qualifications; Less place to place parts (lower stock); Enormous profits; Hard working conditions

The Flaws of Fordism

  • The underlying technology of Model T in 1927 was the same as in 1908; A new model were required (Model A); But plants were designed for Model T. Out of 32000 machine ¼ could be reused, ¼ was to be dismissed and ½ needed extensive reconstruction; 6 months were required for the changeover.
  • GM followed a different path with Alfred Sloan: Wide array of different models; 20 days for a changeover (general-purpose machines); Decentralized company (separate cost centers, market segmentation); Planned obsolescence; Outsourcing.
  • Most ideas of Sloan are now standard management practices.

World War II

  • War Production Board Established in 1942, to face the needs of the war industry; Shipbuilding; Aircraft.
  • Lack of workforce; Women in industry increased to 37% in 1943.
  • Lack of skills for the rapidly changing aircraft technology.
  • 3 major effort were undertaken to increase output while the mean of production were limited: Training within Industry (TWI) – USA; Statistical Process Control (SPC) – USA; Operations Research (OR) – Great Britain.
  • World War II - TWI
    • Developed to reduce the shortage of skilled workers by increasing and standardizing training methods.
    • Development of 4 training programs: Job instructions, Job methods, Job relations, Program Development.
    • Over 1,7 million people trained during the war.
  • After the war the return of soldiers and economic grow reduced the need for training skilled workers. Some TWI experts (Deming or Juran) moved to Japan to offer their services.
  • World War II - SPC
    • Promoted by the US government to improve product quality with a strong focus in the aircraft industry.
    • Monitoring processes using statistical tools to ensure compliance with specifications and to catch quality problems earlier.
    • The economy boom after the war led to a diminution of efforts in quality.
    • Specialists in SPC found it difficult to make a living after the war and offered their services abroad (mainly Japan).
  • World War II - OR
    • Extension of the methods of Taylor, using analytical approaches to support decisions.
    • Optimization of antiaircraft artillery, reducing the number of rounds per downed enemy aircraft from 20000 to 4000.
    • Optimization of antisubmarine warfare, by optimizing convoy size, depth charge patterns or aircraft design.
  • After the war OR expanded to industry; Nowadays, many companies use OR as part of their toolbox to solve problems of limited complexity.

Computers in Manufacturing

  • Mechanization improved manufacturing by replacing muscle power; Yet, in almost all cases, manufacturing still need a human brain to control the process; Invention and subsequent rise of electronic computers change this scenario.
  • First computers developed in different countries during WWII; First to crunch number and return information about calculation; Later used to control other hardware.
    • CNC machines (1952); 0,01% were NC machines in 1963; 1% in 1973; 13% in 1987; Nowadays most machine tools are CNC machines.
    • Industrial robots.
  • Computerized Production Planning: Reducing inventories frees up cash for other investments. The problem is the complexity of modern products.
    • Computers are ideally suited to store and process large data sets; So, computers were used for inventory control already in the 1950’s.
    • 1964, Joseph Orlicky developed a computer system that not only kept track of inventory but also helped with planning production orders for new materials – Material Requirement Planning (MRP).
    • New features added from the 1980’s on – MRPII, BRP, ERP.

The Toyota Production System

  • Sakichi Toyoda invented, in 1896, a loom that stopped automatically when a thread broke; Start of a fundamental step of TPS – Mistake-proof system; Another improvement was the development of methods to find the root cause of problems (5 Whys); 1933 first Toyota engine and 1935 first car prototype; Several problems after the war: Inflation, late payments,…and in 1950 the company faced bankruptcy.
  • Taiichi Ohno
    • Maintain a stock of inventory reproducing only what is pulled out of the stock (Supermarket principle).
    • Use cards to pass information form the supermarket back to manufacturing (Kanban system).
    • Importation of SPC (Development of TQM).
    • Continuous improvement (Kaizen).
    • Importation of the TWI approach (Job instructions).
    • Autonomation.
    • Constant flow through Takt Time (imported from Germany).
    • Quick changeover methods (reduced batch sizes).
    • TPS gave a decisive advantage to Toyota over its competitors: Lower prices, Higher quality

What Else Happened?

  • Theory of constraints – Goldratt (1947-2011).
  • Factory physics or Optimizing factory performance seeks for a correct balance between mathematics and usefulness.
  • Six Sigma (1986), based on SPC and aiming to reduce variability.
  • The big potential: Decision Making; Need for speed; Need for flexibility; Need for labor relations.