Question

What is Fordism? Discuss the benefits and drawbacks of Fordism on the automobile industry, consumers, and workers. Discuss the geography of both Fordism and post-Fordism.

Answer 1

Fordism, a particular stage of 20th century economic development. Fordism is a concept commonly used to characterize (1) the mass production system pioneered by the Ford Motor Company in the early 20th century or (2) the typical post-war mode of economic growth in industrialized capitalism and its related political and social order Fordism was studied in four dimensions. First, it includes mass production of manufactured products using specialized equipment and semi-skilled labor on a moving assembly line as an industrial model. Second, it includes a virtuous cycle of mass production and mass consumption as a regime of national accumulation (or growth).

In the field of process engineering, Ford's key contributions to mass production / consumption. His system's hallmark was standardization standardized materials, standardized production processes, and a standard product that was quick, easy to produce (and repair). Standardization allowed parts to be almost completely interchangeable. Ford used developments in machine tools and gage systems to achieve interchangeability. Such inventions made the moving or continuous assembly line possible, in which each assembler carried out a single, repetitive task. Interestingly, Ford was one of the first to understand the electric motor's ability for reconfiguring workflow.

While these companies work in their heyday to tighter schedules and quality standards for parts than Ford or GM, they have not consolidated their suppliers into a single, large bureaucracy. Nike is an extreme example of this— nothing is made or changed. It sells products, including their design and development. It's renting out everything else. The vendors are not selling products as much as manufacturing facilities.

Production no longer had to be concentrated in a few primary production centers, it could be distributed around the world. Since computer-controlled equipment and advanced manufacturing techniques could tailor production effectively, it no longer needed to be massive in scale. Delivery no longer required large stocks of raw materials and components, as computer-based logistics could ensure custom-made product delivery in just-in-time. Output became more consumer-oriented, with consumer-driven production chains, rather than being led by the manufacturer. Cars, like athletic shoes or military vehicles or whatever the customer wanted, could be redesigned. Fordist automakers offered customers cars with a range of tail fins and chrome appendages to the 1950s, but they altered very little fundamentally. Consumers in the 1980s and 1990s purchased entirely new types of vehicles: the minivan, the sports utility, the pickup truck, the electric sports truck, etc. Instead of a community of mass consumerism that represented mom-and-pop nuclear families in tract suburbs, a much broader range of ethnicities, family structures, sexual orientations, etc. was known.