OT: How were businesses run in the old days?

[bikemaniac]

Hi,

I am very much amazed by how businesses were run in the US in the first half of the last century. To name a few:

The P51 Mustang was designed in some 120 days.
The B24 Liberator was designed in some 2 weeks (only the mockup). Then the Willow Run Manufacturing plant built about 1 aircraft for every hour during peak season.
The Ford Model A was designed within 1 year as I remember. Then almost 5 million were built during 4 years - however at different plants.

How was all that possible?

Doing things at these speeds are 100% impossible today even though we have computers, all kinds of modern equipment etc. Modern corporations are filled with all kinds of software tools to control and "manage". Corporations have 1000s of engineers employed, but they hardly produce anything of value with the same speed as in the past. Modern engineers spend a significant amount of time doing management related work, updating all kinds management systems, looking into the financials, justifying all their moves constantly. But they hardly do anything technical which will give some true, added value.

So, does anyone know how things were run in the good old days? Did they really have project management, business cases etc? I have a hard time seeing how you should have time to do management if you produce 1 aircraft pr hour. Maybe there is some historical literature, books etc on the topic?

Lucas

[Patrick L.]

My first thought would be government. It gets in the way.

And it didn't do that as much back then.

[tinman080]

Ford in particular was a dictatorship, no committees to get thru, almost no engineers to speak of. When the finger was pointed, the folks hopped to get RESULTS. Ford did no engineering work in the development of the bombers or the Jeep. Both projects were given to them already developed and being produced by smaller firms. What Ford had was leadership in Scale of production. They had the expertise in large-scale production. The government actually made this possible by allocation of raw materials and supplies required. This is a prime example of governmental/industrial cooperation with positive results driven by a common goal. Profit was built-in, Ford was able to produce without cost being a consideration.

[Terry, NJ]

Lots of reasons! The government is certainly part of it. However, labor was cheaper and more accessible and employers weren't burdened by OSHA and Insurance and the EPA. There was no Employee Compensation. Lawyers weren't so aggressive as today. Everyone was more focused on their jobs, not so distracted by sideline concerns. Materials were less confusing and better known and therefore easier to work. All those computers and printers cost a lot of money that must be built into the price and that complicates things. Just some ideas to kick around!
Terry

[C26Pinelake]

Ah yes. Engineers! The profession out to create jobs for themselves. Put them on staff and the job will never get finished! Put them on contract with a dollar allocation and they set time records. The self professed experts can turn a no brainer into a career. Henry Ford had very little tolerance for this profession and he did very well without them. Wayne.

[mshmodela]

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Originally Posted by bikemaniac

Hi,

I am very much amazed by how businesses were run in the US in the first half of the last century. To name a few:

The P51 Mustang was designed in some 120 days.
The B24 Liberator was designed in some 2 weeks (only the mockup). Then the Willow Run Manufacturing plant built about 1 aircraft for every hour during peak season.
The Ford Model A was designed within 1 year as I remember. Then almost 5 million were built during 4 years - however at different plants.

How was all that possible?


Lucas

There are few reasons:

* all systems today have much more components (parts). Cars today are the #1 consumer of integrated circuits (chip) in the world.

* Production made during WWII in the US under unique circumstance that have never been see before or since. The Pentagon in Washington D.C was built in a little over 1 year, in 2002 the damage to the Sept 11, 2001 attack was repaired --1 year.

* Ford Model A like the aircraft you mentioned were designs based upon previous ones (The 27' Model T and a 28' Model A are different but they have a lot of things in common...) An evolved T is what I see the Model A as.

[Utopia Texas]

Years ago large businesses/manufacturers had one paper shuffler for every 20 people making the product. Today you have 5 paper shufflers for every worker......

[Fordors]

Sending one plane out the door every hour is not the same as building a plane an hour. When that first bomber was built, assuming there were no initial technical glitches and no learning curve, how long did it take to progress down the assembly line? The length of time for that first build is lost to history.
Only when the line is filled and operating at capacity can you complete one per hour.

[C26Pinelake]

Henry got rich on the backs of the assembly worker and they were happy to accommodate him. They loved their jobs and their pay checks! Wayne

[daren007]

The planes were assembled. I doubt Ford produced few parts in house, Even so one unit per hour still amazes me. It takes a lot of people and lines running plus organization to accomplish such a feat. One plane per hour was probably their best day. Remember when these planes left the assembly line they were not finished. There would have been numerous problems to be taken care of . I would assume many went into the ocean without all their problems fixed. Daren

[captndan]

Hard work and Henry Ford rejected the unions.

[Patrick L.]

My father had several thousand hours in B24s. Of the 3 manufacturers he always said the Fords were the best.

[ericr]

Originally Posted by forever4

He did not want unions. They got in the way of his management style. Henry liked discipline.



That's a Model B engine and 4 speed trans in the lower left, followed by V8s

thanks for putting some perspective onto the discussion.

[bikemaniac]

Originally Posted by Utopia Texas

Years ago large businesses/manufacturers had one paper shuffler for every 20 people making the product. Today you have 5 paper shufflers for every worker......

I totally agree!!
But how did they manage back then with so few paper shufflers?????

[Tom Wesenberg]

Originally Posted by bikemaniac

I totally agree!!
But how did they manage back then with so few paper shufflers?????

And now with computers the bookkeeping should be even easier and take fewer people. Of course now we have all those government regulations to file.

Bring back the good old days when we had to do real work for a living and could buy quality merchandise.

[Karl Wescott]

Go read about how Bill Gates and Paul Allen started up Microsoft (and arguably the bugs are still not killed yet). Read about how Nike was started (running shoe soles on a waffle iron!)

Again as a point of argument the Ford A & T 4 cylinder and flathead V8, shared along with the smallblock Chevy V8 and Microsoft DOS/Windows products that were first marketed well short of there full potential. This led to the "hot rodding" which had the result that those companies got a lot of free engineering from the various aftermarket vendors.

[captndan]

Originally Posted by forever4

He did not want unions. They got in the way of his management style. Henry liked discipline.



That's a Model B engine and 4 speed trans in the lower left, followed by V8s

Yes Henry liked discipline. He did not like unions and his management style was not questioned. That also led to a very strong employee employer loyalty and trust. Something we don't have today.

[mhsprecher]

It took a long time for Willow Run to get up to production speed and then they didn't want to make any changes to the design based on feedback from the pilots and crew. Didn't matter if it didn't work well or was dangerous. Charlie Sorensen talked about that in his book, My Forty Years With Ford.

[midgetracer]

Originally Posted by captndan

Yes Henry liked discipline. He did not like unions and his management style was not questioned. That also led to a very strong employee employer loyalty and trust. Something we don't have today.

captndan,
If you read the history books on Henry Ford, you will see he was questioned seriously, but only Mr Bennett and the morality police enforced the loyalty. It was the depression and people were begging for work... That is why they stayed. He was a great engineer, but not a kind man even to his son.

[ian Simpson]

From many perspectives, Henry Ford was not an honest man. As one example he used the tractor designs of Harry Ferguson without paying royalties.