An American Industrial Revolution Unit for Middle School Students and their Teachers
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		Interchangeable Parts
1800's		In the early 1800's, Eli Whitney came up with an idea that had a great impact on the way goods were produced. Before his idea of interchangeable parts, most goods were produced by skilled workers who made each item by hand from start to finish. For example, a gunsmith worked long and hard on each gun he made. First the stock was made, then the barrel, and also the trigger. Each gun came out a little different, so if a part on a gun broke, the gunsmith would have to make a new part for that particular gun. This took a lot of time. Whitney's idea was to build a machines that made each separate part of the gun.That way, all the parts would be exactly alike. Each barrel would be the same length, and stocks would be the same size and shape. If something broke, it could be easily replaced. Whitney's idea of interchangeable parts made it possible to put together and repair things quickly. This idea began with guns but soon spread to other industries.
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		The Assembly Line
1913		In 1913, Ford introduced the idea of the assembly line. In his automobile factory, he had an assembly line where the frame of each car moved along on a moving belt. Workers on each side of the belt added parts to the car. This allowed Ford to make cars faster. He was then able to sell them for less than his competitors.
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		Scientific Management
		Many of the factories in the early 20th century operated under the philosophy of scientific management. This theory was made popular by Frederick Winslow Taylor, an American industrial engineer.  Taylor believed that workers should be hired to perform a small number of tasks, in a repetitive manner. Scientific management principles discouraged workers from working more effectively and efficiently. The theory was that workers would definitely make mistakes, but inspectors would catch these at the end of the assembly line. Workers could then be docked for faulty workmanship. If a worker made too many mistakes, they could be fired. These same principles made their way into the public schools at the turn of the century.
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		Total Quality
		William Edwards Deming is the person who popularized the Total Quality Philosophy. He felt that the Taylor method of scientific management was degrading to the human spirit. He thought that workers could be trained to conduct their own quality controls. Deming believed that if workers were trained and empowered to manage their own work processes, the quality of their output would increase. If workers could do this, then the inspectors at the end of the line would be unnecessary. Therefore, total quality would lower manufacturing costs. Total Quality Control  Deming Distilled Principles of TQM  deming.eng.clemson.edu/
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		Connection to Today
		Think about a business.  What type of production system are they using?    1.  McDonald's 2.  Subway  3.  Pizza Hut  4.  Royal Fork (a buffet) 5.  Alaskan Bowl Company 6.  Alaska Window 7.  Alaska Taxidermy   Call each business and ask how they control for quality.  Are any businesses moving toward Total Quality?
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