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Charles Fitch credited Whitney with successfully executing a firearms contract with interchangeable parts using the American System, [4] but historians Merritt Roe Smith and Robert B. Gordon have since determined that Whitney never actually achieved interchangeable parts manufacturing. His family's arms company, however, did so after his death.
The American system of manufacturing was a set of manufacturing methods that evolved in the 19th century. [1] The two notable features were the extensive use of interchangeable parts and mechanization for production, which resulted in more efficient use of labor compared to hand methods.
F3 originated in military logistics to describe interchangeable parts: if F3 for two components have the same set of characteristics, i.e. they have the same shape or form, same connections or fit, and perform the same function, they can be substituted one for another. [1]
Henry Ford revolutionized the automobile manufacturing process by employing interchangeable parts on assembly lines—the beginning of industrial mass production. In 1908, the Ford Motor Company released the Ford Model T which could generate 20 horsepower, was lightweight, and easy to repair.
Fordism is "the eponymous manufacturing system designed to produce standardized, low-cost goods and afford its workers decent enough wages to buy them." [ 2 ] It has also been described as "a model of economic expansion and technological progress based on mass production: the manufacture of standardized products in huge volumes using special ...
Ford would often use interchangeable parts between car models to save costs, but slowly decreased after it lost market share to Chevrolet. The concept of interchangeability was crucial to the introduction of the assembly line at the beginning of the 20th century, and has become an important element of some modern manufacturing but is missing from other important industries.
Colt's great contribution was the use of interchangeable parts. Knowing that some gun parts were made by machine, he envisioned all the parts of every Colt gun to be interchangeable and made by machine, to be assembled later by hand. His goal was an assembly line. [18] This is shown in an 1836 letter that Colt wrote to his father in which he said:
For some time, interchangeable-part manufacturing in metal continued to be a combination of machine-made parts and human skill in filing machined parts to precise size for such high-end uses as military weapons, in which interchangeable parts were worth paying for at high prices (they were worth high prices because an army on campaign could ...