The Reliable and Furious Henry Ford - DFM Engineer and Racer
![The Reliable and Furious Henry Ford - DFM Engineer and Racer](/content/images/size/w2000/2023/06/reliable-and-furious.jpg)
Welcome to our DFM Legends series where we share renowned DFM nerds and their stories as they engineer their way through ambitious DFM challenges. 🤓 This story centers on a young Henry Ford challenging the system and designing for reliability before his name was well known.
Ford had an audacious vision to bring the automobile to the masses. His problem: most people did not take him seriously. Consequently, he was quickly going broke.
Influencing and Convincing Others to Design for Manufacturability
Ford's problem was not technical in nature. As one of the founding fathers of the production line, Ford had a deep understanding of how to design and manufacture to the masses, before mass production was popular. Unfortunately, a deep understanding of these technical details alone was not going to cut it for investors.
Lets face it, this was 1901:
- The mass production line didn't really exist yet.
- Gas stations didn't really exist yet.
- Venture capital didn't exist.
- Automobiles are exotic.
At the time, Ford worked for Thomas Edison, and everyone (except for Edison) thought Ford was crazy for making a gas car instead of an electric car.
Where would you get gas... a gas station? 🙄
In this era, the only thing noteworthy about automobiles was the dangerous sport of racing. So, how does Ford influence others in his vision to produce automobiles for the masses?
Ford challenges the leading racer of the day, Henry Winton to a race!
“I never thought anything of racing, but the public refused to consider the automobile in any light other than a fast toy. Therefore later we had to race.” - Ford
![](https://www.dfm40.com/content/images/2023/06/1901-sweeepstakes-race-820x460-d.jpeg)
Furious Design for Reliability
Ford was anything but a racer, so the odds were fully stacked against him. Nonetheless, the Ford team went to work, intensely engineering a state of the art 2 cylinder fuel injection system with porcelain insulated spark coils. With 26 horse power, Ford's car set a speed record for 72 mph in half a mile. Not only was this car fast, it was also designed robustly due to Ford's innovative porcelain insulated design.
On Oct. 10, 1901 Ford and Winton faced of in a 10 lap race at Gross Point Race Track in Detroit. For most of the race, Ford was trailing well behind Winton, but sometime around the 8th lap, Winton's car began to give out. Turns out Winton's injection system was not designed for quality. Consequently, Ford's reliably designed porcelain insulated coils allowed him to close in and win the race. Thus, Ford become an overnight sensation.
DFM's Culture of Challenge!
With this fame, Ford went on to become a legend in DFM, creating the benchmark for all assembly lines and introducing the automobile to the masses. Likely, none of that would have happened if he had not first challenged Winton to a race.
DFM is more than just engineering. DFM is about challenging the system. Sometimes you need to audaciously challenge the ones at the top to a race! Or, some equivalently off beat challenge in order to get things moving! Only then can you get started on some awesome engineering work.
Big thank you to Ford for the inspiration and pictures behind this article.
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