Highland Park Ford Plant

A Ford Motor Company factory in Highland Park, Michigan, where moving-line production was developed and scaled, transforming automobile manufacturing.

Moving assembly line: A production system that moves work past stationary workers or machines for sequential operations. Ford’s Highland Park line carried Model T chassis through successive assembly tasks.
Albert Kahn: An American architect known for industrial buildings designed for manufacturing. Kahn designed Highland Park’s factory buildings to accommodate industrial-scale production.
Five-dollar day: Ford’s 1914 wage policy that offered eligible workers five dollars for a day’s work, subject to conditions. The policy responded partly to labor turnover associated with Highland Park’s demanding line work.
Highland Park Assembly Building: A large Ford factory building at Highland Park designed by Albert Kahn for automobile production. Its flexible interior supported changing production arrangements and assembly-line operations.
Ford Model T: A Ford automobile produced from 1908 to 1927 and designed for mass production. The plant’s assembly innovations were developed chiefly to build this model in huge quantities.
Henry Ford: An American industrialist who founded the Ford Motor Company and led its early growth. Ford drove the production strategy that made Highland Park a center of automotive mass production.
Fordism: A system of mass production and mass consumption associated with standardized goods, high output, and comparatively high wages. Highland Park’s methods became the production model later described as Fordism.
Ford Highland Park Plant power house: The power-generating building at Ford’s Highland Park complex, designed by Albert Kahn. Its prominent industrial architecture formed part of the factory complex’s infrastructure.
Interchangeable parts: Standardized components made to consistent dimensions so they can replace one another without custom fitting. Uniform components let Highland Park workers assemble vehicles without individually adjusting each part.
Ford Piquette Avenue Plant: A Detroit factory where Ford developed and built early Model T automobiles before moving production to Highland Park. It was the Model T’s first production site before Ford expanded manufacturing at Highland Park.

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