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It needed a genius like Henry Ford to get us all on wheels.
His magical formula for multi-profit outcomes got embedded in the assembly line. He created cheap cars + higher salaries + free time.
The way he organized capital and labor in the company to produce cars became a field of study, and the assembly line got its copy in every industry. The success story of broad prosperity followed, but it is coming to an end.
We believed that data could fuel more of the same, but it can't.
The machine is messed up, the threat of gigantism is here. It kills innovation and the mechanisms of healthy renewal (1).
Nevertheless, the assembly line is a beautiful piece of design.
It reduces waste. Paul Bessems coined the term 'digital assembly line' as a thinking tool (2).
Digital assembly lines will give us focus, trust, and new business modeling opportunities. They are getting ready outside factories. Partago, for example, shows the way how car driving is changing.
Partago uses the digital assembly line of The Mobility Factory to make e-car sharing happen. Data travels between things (door locker, charing cards, etc.) and organizing parties (users, help desk, payment and invoice services, etc.).
Henry Ford made his assembly line for production work thanks to electricity utility. This time a data utility is rolling out with a PDS (personal data service) for every person. Work towards (y)our sweet spots. It will get copied.
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(1) Eeckhout Jan, 2021,The Profit Paradox. How Thriving Firms Threaten the Future of Work. Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey.
(2) Bessems Paul, 2022, Datawijsheid. Hoe datagedreven organiseren kantoorwerk reduceert. Weconomics >>>
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