It is a manufacturing system for high volume production. The idea here is to subdivide assembly operations into a number of smaller tasks that are assigned to workers placed sequentially in a fixed order, and the product is moved from one worker to the other by conveyor. Prior to the development of the assembly line, Ford Motor Co. built cars on fixed assembly stands with workers and the components moving to cars on fixed locations. A great deal of time and effort was taken up by the movement of workers and parts throughout the factory.
With moving assembly lines, productivity increased significantly since the time and effort spent on non-productive movement was eliminated. Workers no longer had to move, the cars came to them. Since specific activities were always performed in one spot, material flows could be regularized with single delivery points and storage spaces. The moving assembly line was so-named because it did not stop: workers had to perform tasks on the moving assembly....
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References
Ford, Henry and Samuel Crowther (1924). My Life and Work. William Heinemann, Ltd., London, England.
Ford, Henry (1926). Mass Production. Encyclopaedia Britannica, 13th Edition, Supplemental Volume 2, 821–823.
Hounshell, David (1983). From the American System to Mass Production. University of Delaware Press, Wilmington, Delaware.
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(2000). MOVING ASSEMBLY LINE. In: Swamidass, P.M. (eds) Encyclopedia of Production and Manufacturing Management. Springer, Boston, MA . https://doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-0612-8_596
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