Ford Motor Company

"Ford" redirects here.

The Ford Motor Company (often referred to as Ford; sometimes called FoMoCo), NYSE: F is a multinational corporation that manufactures automobiles. The automaker was founded by Henry Ford in Dearborn, Michigan, United States (where the company is currently headquartered), and incorporated on June 16, 1903. In its twentieth century heyday, Ford, along with General Motors and Chrysler, were known as Detroit's "Big Three" automakers, companies that dominated the American auto market. Toyota surpassed Ford in revenue starting in 2004. Ford remains one of the world's ten largest corporations by revenue.

Ford introduced methods for large-scale manufacturing of cars, and large-scale management of an industrial workforce. Ford implemented the ideas of Eli Whitney, who developed one of the first assembly lines using interchangeable parts, which made it possible to put the cars together at a much lower cost and with greater reliability and repeatability. The use of a chain-driven track to move the vehicles to the workers was unique in the industry and quickly became the preferred method for volume production. As the individual work tasks became simple and repetitive this allowed the use of unskilled laborers who could be quickly trained for a single task (though it also removed most of the satisfaction that a worker performing multiple tasks may enjoy).