Monozukuri no Kagakushi (History of Science in Monozukuri - The “Standard Revolution” that Changed the World)

Using “standards” as a key concept, this book explores the nature of various technologies including manufacturing technology and the historical formation of technological systems that constitute the basis of the modern global society. The first half of the book deals with the technological origin and historical development of manufacturing technology leading to the birth of mass-production systems of the Ford Motor Company. A key aspect of this production system was setting-up of the assembly line, which reminds us of an image of workers engaging in simple tasks in front of a conveyor day in and day out. Behind this image, however, lies the development of manufacturing technology in the previous century, which made it possible to make a number of standardized mechanical parts. American engineers had developed the manufacturing technology based on various machine tools to produce metal products by the mid-19th century, which was named by impressed British engineers as “the American system of manufacturing.” Ford’s mass production system required as its premise the production in quantity of the “interchangeable” components whose shape and size are identical within a permitted margin so that products are constructed without the need for fine-tuning of components when assembling. To make this manufacturing technology more applicable, it is possible to produce basic parts like universal screws which may be used in any machine. Such standardized screws were actually proposed in the latter half of the 19th century, but were not widely used or adopted at the time.
 
Whereas the former half of this book deals with the historical development of mechanical technology, the latter half takes various historical examples showing the significance of standards and standardization in various technological systems. From the previous version of this book published about 10 years ago, this revised edition added a new chapter, which included, in particular, a topic on freight transportation containers. The utilization of standardized metal containers transformed the world of logistics. This may be somewhat different from the technical standardization of screws or electric voltage, but it did create one of the major and iconic technological systems that has formed our modern global society. Aside from this account of freight containers, it discussed and explained about various types of technical standards and how they are established.
 

(Written by Takehiko Hashimoto, Professor, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences / 2018)