Charles E. Sorensen: Productivity

Charles E. Sorensen was American businessman. Explore interesting quotes on productivity.
Charles E. Sorensen: 20 quotes0 likes

“It took only a few days to block off the little room on the third floor back of the Piquette Avenue plant and to set up a few simple power tools and Joe Galamb's two blackboards. The blackboards were a good idea. They gave a king-sized drawing which, when all initial refinements had been made, could be photographed for two purposes: as a protection against patent suits attempting to prove prior claim to originality and as a substitute for blueprints. A little more than a year later Model T, the product of that cluttered little room, was announced to the world. But another half year passed before the first Model T was ready for what had already become a clamorous market…”

Charles E. Sorensen

Source: My Forty Years with Ford, 1956, p. 97 ; As cited in: EyeWitness to History (2005)

“One of the hardest-to-down myths about the evolution of mass production at Ford is one which credits much of the accomplishment to 'scientific management.' No one at Ford—not Mr. Ford, Couzens, Flanders, Wills, Pete Martin, nor I—was acquainted with the theories of the 'father of scientific management,' Frederick W. Taylor. Years later I ran across a quotation from a two-volume book about Taylor by Frank Barkley Copley, who reports a visit Taylor made to Detroit late in 1914, nearly a year after the moving assembly line had been installed at our Highland Park plant. Taylor expressed surprise to find that Detroit industrialists 'had undertaken to install the principles of scientific management without the aid of experts.' To my mind this unconscious admission by an expert is expert testimony on the futility of too great reliance on experts and should forever dispose of the legend that Taylor's ideas had any influence at Ford.”

Charles E. Sorensen

Source: My Forty Years with Ford, 1956, p. 41

“Actually it took four years and more to develop Model T. Previous models were the guinea pigs, one might say, for experimentation and development of a car which would realize Henry Ford's dream of a car which anyone could afford to buy, which anyone could drive anywhere, and which almost anyone could keep in repair. Many of the world's greatest mechanical discoveries were accidents in the course of other experimentation. Not so Model T, which ushered in the motor transport age and set off a chain reaction of machine production now known as automation. All our experimentation at Ford in the early days was toward a fixed and, then wildly fantastic goal.”

Charles E. Sorensen

Source: My Forty Years with Ford, 1956, p. 102 ; As cited in: EyeWitness to History (2005)

“Without titles and tier of officials how could one build an organization? When Flanders resigned as production manager taking with him his assistant Walborn, to work for a newly formed company, Henry Ford called Ed Martin and me to his office. "Ed and Charlie," he said, "Flanders and Walborn are leaving, and I want you to take their places. You Ed, will be plant superintendent and you Charlie, will be assistant superintendent. Just go out there and run the plant. I know you can do it. But there's one thing I want to add: work together as one. I don't ever want to hear that you can't work together. And don't worry about titles."”

Charles E. Sorensen

Source: My Forty Years with Ford, 1956, p. 49-50

“By August, 1913, all links in the chain of moving assembly lines were complete except the last and most spectacular one - the one we had first experimented with one Sunday morning just five years before. Again a towrope was hitched to a chassis, this time pulled by a capstan. Each part was attached to the moving chassis in order, from axles at the beginning to bodies at the end of the line. Some parts took longer to attach than others; so, to keep an even pull on the towrope, there must be differently spaced intervals between delivery of the parts along the line. This called for patient timing and rearrangement until the flow of parts and the speed and intervals along the assembly line meshed into a perfectly synchronized operation throughout all stages of production. Before the end of the year a power-driven assembly line was in operation, and New Year's saw three more installed. Ford mass production and a new era in industrial history had begun.”

Charles E. Sorensen

Source: My Forty Years with Ford, 1956, p. 130-131 ; As cited in: EyeWitness to History (2005)