Didja know............... Henry Ford did not invent the assembly line. Venetians used it before the Industrial Revolution to build one ship a day! Long before Henry Ford started making use of it and even long before the Industrial Revolution, the Venetians were already using moving assembly lines—as early as 1104! The Venetian Arsenal became the largest industrial complex in Europe, spanning an area of about 45 ha, or about fifteen percent of Venice. The Arsenal made it possible to construct and maintain all the states navy and large merchant ships in one place. They developed methods of mass-producing warships in the Arsenal, including the frame-first system. This new system was much more time efficient and required less wood. At the peak of its efficiency in the early sixteenth century, the Arsenal employed approximately 16,000 people. These people were able to produce almost one ship per day—fitting it out, arming it and provisioning a newly built galley with standardized parts on a production-line basis never to be seen again until the Industrial Revolution. In the rest of Europe the production of a similar sized vessel could often take months. The Arsenal became a mass-production center and by the 16th century it had become the most powerful and efficient shipbuilding enterprise in the world. The idea of a moving assembly line was only repeated in the 20th century when Henry Ford introduced the modern assembly line.
Posted on: Wed, 02 Apr 2014 09:53:01 +0000
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