Analýzy a trendy v SR, EÚ a USA Analyses and trends in SR, EU & USA
History of mass production
F. Orth III.
Analysis produced by PHORTEC, s.r.o.
Mass products started to appear in the
world in the late 19th century in time,
when population started to grow multiple faster thanks to science-technical
revolution. A pioneer of mass products
in automobile industry was Henry Ford
(founder of carmaker Ford) and the first
mass made vehicle was called “Model
T”.
At that time (1896-1930) there were
approximately 1 800 automobile companies in the USA, however many of
them went bankrupt in crisis years
1928-37. Ford survived just thanks to
mass production, because he introduced flow production by his car “Model
T”. At that time he not only employed
thousands of people but enabled to his
dustry and on the market with domestic
chemical cleaners.
Science-technical development helped
to create the possibilities for many people, not only for the rich population,
and so the mass products gradually
started to penetrate to all fields of business. Product industry enlarged later
so much that most of todays products
are owned just by mass product companies.
In my opinion the mass product industry will concentrate and consolidate in
the future more and it will have a bigger share in market. This opinion is supported also by Olduvai theory, which
says that industrial period should be
since year 1930 to 2030. The develop
ment of new products will create for
their parent companies a wide scale of
products.
An idea of Henry Ford was to change
the whole branch which was that time
making only piece series of automobiles. And he succeeded - he enabled the
car to wide masses because they could
afford it. Up until starting of production
of vehicle “Model T” the car was a symbol of higher social status, only people
from higher class could afford it. With
the starting of mass production it was
not already only a domain of rich people but it became an usual part of the
middle class.
workers in factory to afford the car as
well. Because it had one big advantage,
it was very cheap. Overall it was a big
progress at that time. “Model T” was
humble, handy and simple automobile
made from solid materials and standardized parts.
Ford was not the only one who started
a revolution in mass production. Many
other mass product companies were
founded later, such as Procter & Gamble or Unilever. These two companies
were engaged mainly in food-stuff in-
Another phenomenon came with the
mass products, namely the vertical and
horizontal integration. According to
vertical integration, companies making
the mass products will at first gain a dominant position on the market and later
they will buy competitive companies
for the purpose of gaining a monopoly
position. By horizontal integration the
whole process around services or product is controled by companies which
are connected to the same owner and
so it comes to control of process of production and price.
In the end I would like to emphasise the
contribution of mass products to todays
society. The biggest is perhaps that the
mass products enabled, that also in
the most remote country the products
which are global presented and easy to
distinguish by customer are at disposal.
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