Page 299 - (DK) The Business Book

DELIVERING THE GOODS 297

See also: Stand out in the market 28–29 ■ Creativity and invention 72–73 ■ Thinking outside the box 88–89 ■ The
learning organization 202–07 ■ The value chain 216–217 ■ Lean production 290–93 ■ Kaizen 302–09

Costs can be reduced by
In competitive markets,
consumers look for value streamlining processes
for money. or simplifying products.

To reduce the price of their Eliminate
products, companies may choose to unnecessary steps.
lower their production costs.

of a process that was successfully iron to create steel were removed Watson Hendry invented plastic-
simplified is steel manufacturing. from the metal by blowing air injection-molding technology, which
During the Industrial Revolution, through the iron during the was used to produce one-piece
huge quantities of steel were needed production process. Bessemer’s chairs and tables much more
to build bridges, ships, and railroads. simpler production method was more cheaply than wood.
Steel was in short supply because it fuel efficient. As a result, the cost of
was expensive to produce. In making steel fell from as much as Mass production
Britain, steel had been made in $97 (£60) per ton to $11 (£7) per ton. In the early 1900s, Henry Ford
high-temperature, coke-fired In some cases, simplifying a revolutionized manufacturing
furnaces since the 1740s. Small process can mean using different by standardizing the method
quantities of iron were loaded into materials. In 1946 in the US, James used to make cars. Before Ford’s ❯❯
small clay crucibles (containers that
withstood heat) and placed inside
the furnace. After three hours,
impurities were scraped from the
crucibles, leaving the steel behind.
Simplifying the process
In the 1850s the production method
was simplified by the British
engineer Henry Bessemer. His
so-called Bessemer process did not
require crucibles. Instead, the
impurities generated from heating

Steelmaking was revolutionized by
Henry Bessemer’s new converter. It
raised the temperature of the iron so
that more impurities could be removed
during the oxidation process.