<P> Steam powered conveyor lifts began being used for loading and unloading ships some time in the last quarter of the 19th century . Hounshell (1984) shows a c. 1885 sketch of an electric powered conveyor moving cans through a filling line in a canning factory . </P> <P> The meatpacking industry of Chicago is believed to be one of the first industrial assembly lines (or dis - assembly lines) to be utilized in the United States starting in 1867 . Workers would stand at fixed stations and a pulley system would bring the meat to each worker and they would complete one task . Henry Ford and others have written about the influence of this slaughterhouse practice on the later developments at Ford Motor Company . </P> <P> According to Domm, the implementation of mass production of an automobile via an assembly line may be credited to Ransom Olds, who used it to build the first mass - produced automobile, the Oldsmobile Curved Dash . Olds patented the assembly line concept, which he put to work in his Olds Motor Vehicle Company factory in 1901 . </P> <P> At Ford Motor Company, the assembly line was introduced by William "Pa" Klann upon his return from visiting Swift & Company's slaughterhouse in Chicago and viewing what was referred to as the "disassembly line", where carcasses were butchered as they moved along a conveyor . The efficiency of one person removing the same piece over and over without himself moving caught his attention . He reported the idea to Peter E. Martin, soon to be head of Ford production, who was doubtful at the time but encouraged him to proceed . Others at Ford have claimed to have put the idea forth to Henry Ford, but Pa Klann's slaughterhouse revelation is well documented in the archives at the Henry Ford Museum and elsewhere, making him an important contributor to the modern automated assembly line concept . Ford was appreciative, having visited the highly automated 40 - acre Sears mail order handling facility around 1906 . At Ford, the process was an evolution by trial and error of a team consisting primarily of Peter E. Martin, the factory superintendent; Charles E. Sorensen, Martin's assistant; Clarence W. Avery; C. Harold Wills, draftsman and toolmaker; Charles Ebender; and József Galamb . Some of the groundwork for such development had recently been laid by the intelligent layout of machine tool placement that Walter Flanders had been doing at Ford up to 1908 . </P>

Who invented the assembly line method of production