My Life and Work - Henry Ford

最近在看 Henry Ford 的自传 My Life and Work。非常多的历史细节和思维过程。爱不释手。

比如福特提到他大概是 1876 年 12 岁就去看内燃机，给他留下了深刻印象。然后就开始研究学习机械。当时似乎还没有现在的学校制度。他先是在一个钟表店学徒，在家呆了一段时间，后来就去发电厂工作了。

福特在书中解释到他家虽然算不上富裕 (rich)，但是并不贫穷 (poor)。并在下文中提到，他的父亲提出给他 40 英亩林地如果他不继续搞机械的。也就是 240 亩的林地。福特说他为了结婚安家假装答应了。

福特做出了整个城市里的第一辆自动车。开到哪里都会引人围观，离开一会就会有人要试着驾驶。只好带了一条链子，锁在路边的邮筒上。

在那个年代，大家普遍认为电动车在世未来的趋势。福特在他所就职的公司已经做到技术主管职位，他供职的公司愿意为他提供资源做研究，但是汽油机除外，他还记得公司的总裁说：

Electricity, yes, that’s the coming thing. But gas, no.

前几个章节主要是围绕如何组织汽车生产展开的。有时候我们会把软件开发比喻成流水线作业，如果了解了生产线的真正含义就会发现这个比喻很不恰当。软件开发主要是一个设计的过程，设计完成的时候也就是生产完成的时候。福特说他在生产之前进行了 12 年的设计，这个设计过程，才是代表设计软件的过程。很可惜书中并没有细述这个设计过程。

流水线不是一个简单的形式，而是一种思维方法，是一个不断改进的过程。反倒是软件的重构，优化过程有点像这个流水线的作用。就是在同样产出的情况下，研究如何提高效率。

福特模式是一种去除浪费的模式。通俗媒体会对丰田模式和福特模式的区别做一些解读，但是看完福特模式的仔细描述，我反而不认为他们有什么区别。说到底，都是讲科学。

其他资料显示，流水线作业枯燥，造成人员流失率高达 320%，每天都有 10% 的人翘班。因此还要多招人进行储备。引起薪资系统改革。工人提供双倍薪水，九小时工作改为八小时，与此同时提供年底利润分红。

流水线理念的先进之处，在于它付出双倍的薪水的同时，产品价格更低了，厂商利润更高了。福特还说，如果员工抱怨待遇低，消费者抱怨价格高，老板也抱怨利润少，那就是没有进行有效的生产。

福特的 T 型车确实出于一个特殊的时代。它不涉及设计，也不涉及销售，专注与生产。供不应求的的源头，也是福特一开始就是要打造一款适应面非常广的产品，为 100% 的人口设计，并不要被哪抱怨的 5% 误导。他觉得自动交通工具这东西是每人都需要的。与此对应他觉得手表到不是每个人都需要。

非常有意思的是福特早期的汽车是使用行星齿轮变速箱，现在是只有自动变速箱才会配这种变速箱。

还有最初使用的是皮带传动，但是技术或材料不过关，天热的时候有问题才换用了档杆传动。也就说最早期的汽车结构和当代比较先进的 CVT 是很相似的。

后面的章节里福特还提到了金融的意义。

It is inevitable who can borrow freely to cover errors of managment will borrow rather than correct the errors.

以下从前几个章节摘抄。全书内涵更加丰富。

We have to recognize the unevenness in human mental equipments.

It’s not the employer who pays wages. He only handles the money. It’s the product that pays the wages and it is the management that arranges the production so that the product may pay the wages.

It is self-evident that a majority of the people in the world are not mentally–even if the are physically–capable of making a good living. That is, they are not capable of furnishing with their own hands a sufficient quantity of the goods which this world needs.

We have most unfortunately found it necessary to get rid of a man as soon as he thinks himself an expert–because no one ever considers himself expert if he really knows his job.

A man who knows a job sees so much more to be done than he has done, that he is always pressing forward and never gives up an instant of thought to how good and how efficient he is.

Now a business, in my way of thinking, is not a machine. It is a collection of people who are brought together to do work and not to write letters to one another.

Not only is a title often injurious to the wearer, but it has its effect on others as well. These is perhaps not greater single source of personal dissatisfaction among men that the fact that the title-bearers are not always the real leaders.

The cleanliness of a man’s machine also-although cleaning a machine is no part of his duty–is usually an indication of his intelligence.

Men will work with the idea of catching somebody’s eye; they will work with the idea that if they fail to get credit for what they have done, they might as well have done it badly or not have done it at all. Thus the work sometimes becomes a secondary consideration.

The main work becomes personal advancement–a platform from which to catch somebody’s eye. The habit of making the work secondary and the recognition primary is unfair to the work. It makes recognition and credit the real job. And this also has an unfortunate effect on the worker.