HENRY FORD AND THE FORD MOTOR COMPANY

Henry Ford may be a man worth remembering somewhere and humanity owes a lot to his intellect and philosophies and he was a pioneer with deep convictions which would have been opposed by many but at the end stood the test of time. What makes Ford special...to me is his rebellious nature and his inventive spirit which stood in good stead to reform the world.

Note that Ford was ahead of his times and not a very formally schooled man in the strict sense of the term and being largely acquainted with a farming family an activity he loathed to the chagrin of his father points instantly to an unhealthy relationship between father and son. Farming during those times in the USA was probably treated as the only known or a safe mode of making a living and the young Ford being indifferent to it must have been a unsolacing feel for his father who must have been largely concerned about the future of his recalcitrant son.

This is at a place called Dearborn which was probably a farming village about 15 miles from the city of Detroit. What could the place have been like. It possibly had a church and some kind of a village school and few bars and inns where people socialized but must have been sparsely populated and insecure and people moved around the place in horseback's or on horse drawn carts and life must have been very difficult and there must have been quarrels between people on some count and sometimes taking a vociferous overture and Ford saw it all as a child and somewhere probably understood the limitations of an economy largely driven by agriculture. Ford had a contemporary in John Davison Rockefeller who ran the Standard Oil Company and there is int much evidence to point any warm and long standing relationship or friendship of some kind between these two people for reasons unknown possibly because each had a strong and rigid value system which could have taken a collision course.

The young Ford seems to have walked or taken a ride in parts in a horse cart all the way from his farm possibly as the rift with his father became unbearable and his colossal inability and aversion for the farm its activities and its economics. His mother possibly gave him money(when alive) to sustain himself in Detroit but the city and its business interested him and the various machine shops and their occupations were an attraction to the young Ford so much so that he saw the future of humanity in them. I believe Ford had some kind of ability at conceiving an end result and then enjoining people with various skills into achieving the end result a skill of coordination which he carried in abundance.

Ford lost his mother when he was young a feature he shares with Lincoln and it could have further fueled his desire to leave the farm and go to Detroit. Detroit was a happening place for Ford and he liked it much more than the farm, the sound of machinery from the various work shops and the general dynamism of the city synchronized well with the verve and aspirations of the young Ford. I presume he must have been twenty years of age when he fully accustomed himself to the city possibly doing various kinds of jobs largely of the machining kind thereby unconsciously garnering very valuable experience. Ford was chief engineer of an illumination company for some time during this crucial period of his life and I don't know what this means and what his job was like but I can very well presume he did not find himself in this vocation and a desire do something mammoth was too strongly intertwined in his persona and a large scale desire to involve himself in something more lasting and challenging. Ford being born in the year 1864 and the duration of a crucial kind according to me where Ford transformed himself from a farm lad to an experienced and suave city-man must be between 1884 to 1900 a full period of around 16 years ---a period long enough to transformation in any one.

I see another interesting coincidence in another contemporary of Henry Ford a man called John Davison Rockefeller who pioneered refining of petroleum crude to create kerosene and other hydro carbon products which ultimately provided the gasoline with which the cars made by Ford would run. This is a coincidence which helped in the creation of gasoline fueled cars and a new dimension in technology. There is not much indication any where to show any kind of long standing friendship or relationship between these two individuals who were similar ind dissimilar with each other in many ways. Rockefeller was more of a business thinker and Ford was more of a social thinker and this fundamental conflict of ethos must have prevented any long standing companionship between these two individuals. Rockefeller seems to have German roots and Ford Irish. Nevertheless the activities of both these individuals created a composite cumulative impact and moved the world and its events into a particular alley and into a definitive rhythm. Moreover Rockefeller was older than Ford.

Ford made the quadricycle which has become the modern day car. Basically his idea must have been to take two cycles and weld them together with a base and an engine propelling the back wheel with some control systems for braking and speed. This meant the structure was more stable than a cycle and could seat a couple of people and Ford must have rode this vehicle on the streets of Detroit to the amusement of many. He probably took the vehicle over long distances and made corrections on the vehicle of various kinds like may be fitting a shock absorber. The vehicle amused many. Similar vehicles were built by the Germans too but for some reasons nothing much is heard of their forays into this field. There was a man called Carl Benz in Germany whose legacy is carried by Benz cars today. Ford was fortunate to be in America and in a city where many things were handy and the quadricycle that he built would in due course propel him into a domain so elevated that he would redefine business for posterity. There was a market for the car; there was manpower that could make it and there were many resources that instantly came from the vicinity and above all he had a great sense of ingenuity to look beyond every day hurdles and obstacles a possible trait that differentiates him instantly from the many other people in the world who were on a similar trail. Unlike Europe of that era which was less united, America presented itself as one single block that spoke the same language and people in the villages saw this car as an instant contrivance to travel from their habitats to towns for various purposes an activity which Ford himself must have endured as a young man and he knew too precisely where his quadricyle or later the Ford model T would be precisely employed.

The period between 1900 and 1908 is crucial as this period possibly gave birth to the model T car which would ultimately sell more than 15 million. 15 million is a staggering amount even by modern standards. Many people would come searching for Ford in Detroit and were willing to buy his car and so came many investors who were willing to invest capital in some form. What would have began as a demand for 10 cars a month slowly became 100 and then 1000 and then 10000 and Ford was increasingly looking for methods to develop new production methodologies and apparently the mass production methodologies used in the abattoirs of the day seemed to have inspired Ford into division of labor and even possibly hired people who had experience in such outfits where animals were culled to mass produce food.

These events were a crucible in many form where far reaching changes would get dictated and I believe the emergence of America as a super power has largely to do with its quick metamorphosis from an agrarian economy to an industrial economy largely working on hither-to unknown principles and the combination of the mind of one man and circumstances would redefine the world into creating large scale economic advantage and the Ford Motor Company was at the center of it all . What are the far reaching changes; Firstly the industrial sector got the credibility of a reliable and consistent employer of multitudes who worked in unison to create economic miracles, secondly Ford saw the benefits of Economy of scale possibly for the first time possibly never seen before and called Fordism; The car as a product brought America closer there-by creaing a physical and psychological unification of masses and finally the day to day production problems and quality problems faced would pave the way for many sister technologies and methodologies to advance at a rapid pace. As a result of such forces Ford was able to pay his workers 06 dollars a day an amount considerable even today in many parts of the world.

Have I seen a Ford model-T ? - the answer is YES in the back yard of a Victorian style bungalow on Brunton road in Bangalore. This means Ford model T had found its way into India possibly owned by British officers of that time which they abandoned in a hurry during their exit from this country.

Let me put in a nut shell Henry Ford and his contributions to making the world a more safer economic haven;

• By playing with the Quadricycle and later transforming it into the model T Ford lays the basic foundations for the auto industry which over the century would become some kind of a driver of world economy.
• Ford demonstrated the viability of a semi-professional industrial society where people in large numbers would converge in search of employment.
• The activities of Ford saw a strategic shift in economic patterns with the Industrial economy becoming a pull factor to the agricultural economy redistributing patterns of consumption of agricultural produce.
• Ford proved Fordism through economies of scale a previously unknown commercial phenomenon.
• Activities of Ford spurred the need for managerial thought and awakening relating to various aspects of operations and manufacturing.
• Ford ran the most difficult of supply-chains of the world starting from iron ore to the final dealer of his produce.
• For the first time in the world competitive manufacturing began to emerge with the growth of General Motors.
• Unionism becomes a reality in the industrial world due to apparent problems in the way a large work force is handled and managed.
• The need to study markets and market research becomes a reality.
• Finally the automobile would catalyze crude refining the world over and the automobile emissions would create the negative effect of global warming.