My Life and Work | Page 8

that utility, design, and material are
the best. If your researches do not give you that confidence, then keep
right on searching until you find confidence. The place to start
manufacturing is with the article. The factory, the organization, the
selling, and the financial plans will shape themselves to the article. You
will have a cutting, edge on your business chisel and in the end you
will save time. Rushing into manufacturing without being certain of the
product is the unrecognized cause of many business failures. People
seem to think that the big thing is the factory or the store or the
financial backing or the management. The big thing is the product, and
any hurry in getting into fabrication before designs are completed is
just so much waste time. I spent twelve years before I had a Model
T--which is what is known to-day as the Ford car--that suited me. We
did not attempt to go into real production until we had a real product.
That product has not been essentially changed.
We are constantly experimenting with new ideas. If you travel the

roads in the neighbourhood of Dearborn you can find all sorts of
models of Ford cars. They are experimental cars--they are not new
models. I do not believe in letting any good idea get by me, but I will
not quickly decide whether an idea is good or bad. If an idea seems
good or seems even to have possibilities, I believe in doing whatever is
necessary to test out the idea from every angle. But testing out the idea
is something very different from making a change in the car. Where
most manufacturers find themselves quicker to make a change in the
product than in the method of manufacturing--we follow exactly the
opposite course.
Our big changes have been in methods of manufacturing. They never
stand still. I believe that there is hardly a single operation in the making
of our car that is the same as when we made our first car of the present
model. That is why we make them so cheaply. The few changes that
have been made in the car have been in the direction of convenience in
use or where we found that a change in design might give added
strength. The materials in the car change as we learn more and more
about materials. Also we do not want to be held up in production or
have the expense of production increased by any possible shortage in a
particular material, so we have for most parts worked out substitute
materials. Vanadium steel, for instance, is our principal steel. With it
we can get the greatest strength with the least weight, but it would not
be good business to let our whole future depend upon being able to get
vanadium steel. We have worked out a substitute. All our steels are
special, but for every one of them we have at least one, and sometimes
several, fully proved and tested substitutes. And so on through all of
our materials and likewise with our parts. In the beginning we made
very few of our parts and none of our motors. Now we make all our
motors and most of our parts because we find it cheaper to do so. But
also we aim to make some of every part so that we cannot be caught in
any market emergency or be crippled by some outside manufacturer
being unable to fill his orders. The prices on glass were run up
outrageously high during the war; we are among the largest users of
glass in the country. Now we are putting up our own glass factory. If
we had devoted all of this energy to making changes in the product we
should be nowhere; but by not changing the product we are able to give

our energy to the improvement of the making.
The principal part of a chisel is the cutting edge. If there is a single
principle on which our business rests it is that. It makes no difference
how finely made a chisel is or what splendid steel it has in it or how
well it is forged--if it has no cutting edge it is not a chisel. It is just a
piece of metal. All of which being translated means that it is what a
thing does--not what it is supposed to do--that matters. What is the use
of putting a tremendous force behind a blunt chisel if a light blow on a
sharp chisel will do the work? The chisel is there to cut, not to be
hammered. The hammering is only incidental to the job. So if we want
to work why not concentrate on the work and do it in the quickest
possible fashion? The cutting edge