TOWARDS «QUALITY MANAGEMENT»: THE HENRY FORD PRODUCTION SYSTEM

The article studies the production system of Henry Ford (an automobile king, one of the world's wealthiest persons) in terms of modern quality management systems. It is shown that quality management principles emerged as far back as the period of industrial machine production. Realization of these principles at Henry Ford’s factories enabled to set up the record-size mass production, to ensure the huge increase of labour productivity, to develop and improve the production methods in order to satisfy users’ needs