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62 SMT Magazine • May 2016 bor they could from the worker, and the work- ers quickly tired of doing the same thing over and over again on the assembly line. What in the world does this have to do with high tech electronic product assembly? Our industry organization structure started to form in the 19th century and was mirrored in academia as specialization started to take root. As companies started to replace cottage industries and the factory became the indus- trial workplace, people like Henry Ford found it convenient to organize by common skill set: wheel assemblers, engine assemblers, body as- semblers, etc. Also, managing essentially by work packet permitted upper management to set goals and hold specific managers and lead people accountable for the quality and output of each area. Organizations started to put em- ployees with common skill sets into depart- ments. As factories, mass production and as- sembly lines spread into other product areas, the hierarchal organizational pyramid grew as the economies scale and competition drove product cost and prices down. Great for the consumer whose disposable income contin- ued to rise as the cost of products continued to sink! This process took a huge step back in 1929 as the globe sunk into a global depression. Not until 1939 when the world was thrust into WWII did the world quickly retool for existen- tial reasons, laying the groundwork for a mas- sive economic upturn after 1945. Housing be- came affordable to returning soldiers and their families. Electronic products like the transistor radio became available to the masses for the reasons similar to the exponential rise in au- tomobile production during the early part of the century. One difference was that electronic products were yet to be automated. Sources of inexpensive labor like Japan dominated this product assembly market segment. Low labor costs and the mass production of the electron- ic components again made the consumer the big winner. tHE HEnRY FoRd diviSion oF laboR PRoduction ModEl Figure 5: An alternate organization model.