The mass production system that used assembly lines to boost efficiency and lower costs is known as which term?

• A. Taylorism
• B. American standard of living
• C. War Industries Board
• D. Fordism

Answer: (D)

Fordism is the mass production system that used moving assembly lines to boost efficiency and lower costs. Henry Ford’s approach shaped how factories turned out large quantities of standardized products, especially cars, by breaking work into simple, repetitive tasks and moving the product along a continuously moving line. This setup dramatically reduced the time to assemble a unit and cut costs through high-volume production and standardized parts. Ford also paired this with paying workers higher wages (the famous $5 a day) to reduce turnover and expand the market for the goods, reinforcing a cycle of productivity and consumption.

Taylorism, by contrast, focuses on scientific management and optimizing each worker’s movements to maximize efficiency, but it isn’t defined by the assembly-line production system or the broader mass-production approach that Fordism embodies. The War Industries Board is a wartime government organization, and the American standard of living is an outcome or concept, not a production system.