Ford Long Beach Assembly Plant Assembly Floor
The only diagram that survives of the organization of the assembly floor was made in 1940. It shows the implementation at Long Beach of the ideas of the moving assembly line. The line is laid out so that parts that are needed for the assembly process are available to workers at the time they are needed. Storage and assembly functions are arranged in the building to serve that end. In addition to the main assembly line, there are other lines along which parts pass as they are, for example, painted and dried so they can be attached to the automobile at the appropriate time. The diagram also indicates the separate building in which paint supplies were stored and mixed so they would be available to use when needed on the assembly line.
And the diagram indicates the sites of other activities that occurred in the building including the service stock department, offices, show room and service school.
This diagram shows the configuration of the assembly line at the time it was made. It had been changed many times since it was first laid out in 1930 and there were also many subsequent changes. As the section on Temporal and Technological Change indicates, Ford brought out new model cars each year. To build the new models, the assembly line had to be temporarily stopped and reconfigured to accommodate the changes that separated the new models from the old ones. While the assembly line was stopped for these model changes, other changes in assembly technology were often also made. The changes reflected research and development carried on at Ford's laboratories in Michigan.
PLANT LAYOUT, FORD MOTOR COMPANY LONG BEACH ASSEMBLY PLANT, MARCH 1940
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