Ford
1 Ford’s great strength was the manufacturing .ring process-not invention.Long before he started a car company,he was a worker, known for picking up pieces of metal and wire and turning them into machines.He started putting cars together in 1 89 1. A1though it was by no means the first popular automobile,the Model T showed the world use how creative Ford was at combining technology and market.
2 The company‘s assembly line alone threw America’s Industrial Revolution into overdrive.Instead of having workers put together the entire Car,Ford’s friends,who were great toolmakers from Scotland,organized teams that added parts to each Model T as it moved down a line.By the time Ford’s Highland Park plant was humming along in 1914,the world’s first automatic conveyor belt could turn out a car every 93 minutes.
3 The same year Henry Ford shocked the world with the$5.a.day minimum Wage scheme. The greatest contribution he had ever made.The average wage in the auto industry then was$2.34 for a 9.hour shift.Ford not only doubled that.he also took an hour off the workday.In those years it was unthinkable that a man could be Paid that much for doing something that didn’t involve an awful lot of training or education.The wall Street Journal called the plan“all economic crime”.and critics everywhere 1aughed at Ford.
4 But as the wage increased later to daily$i0,it proved a critical component of Ford’s dream to make the automobile accessible to a11.The critics were too stupid to understand that because F0rd had 10wered his costs per car ,the higher wages didn’t matter--except for making it possible for more people to buy Cars.
1 Paragraph 1 ____________
2 Paragraph 2 ____________
3 Paragraph 3 ____________
4 Paragraph 4 ____________
A Ford’s Followers
B The Assembly Line
C Ford’s Great Dream
D The Establishment of the Company
E Ford’s Biggest Contribution
F Ford’8 Great Talent
5 The assembly line made it possible to ____________
6 Ford was the first to adopt ____________
7 Higher wages enabled many people to ____________
8 Ford’s higher—wage and lower—cost strategy was strongly ____________
A criticized by the media
B the IOW wage in the auto industry
C own a car
D produce cars In Large numbers
E the 8-hour-shift practice
F combined technology and market