ABSTRACT
Traditionally, auto companies dating back to the River Rouge plant of Ford Motor Company, put lumber, steel, and leather in one end and took Model Ts out the other. The idea was to have a very big company, with a lot of factories and a big capital base. Companies like that could control all aspects of their production and make what they wanted with high levels of productivity and reduced costs. The Rouge was the largest single manufacturing complex in the United States, with peak employment of about 120,000 during World War II. Here, Henry Ford achieved selfsufficiency and vertical integration in automobile production — a continuous workflow from iron ore and other raw materials to finished automobiles. The complex included dock facilities, blast furnaces, open-hearth steel mills, foundries, a rolling mill, metal stamping facilities, an engine plant, a glass manufacturing building, and a tire plant.
