The industrial system of standardized mass production named after Henry Ford is Fordism.
Fordism describes a production and social-economic model built around standardized products, specialized tasks, interchangeable parts, assembly lines, and high-volume output. Henry Ford’s Ford Motor Company popularized these principles in automobile manufacturing, especially through the Model T.
Ford’s moving assembly-line methods helped lower production time and unit costs. In 1914, the company also introduced a widely publicized five-dollar daily wage, intended partly to reduce turnover and absenteeism while helping workers participate in the consumer market. Fordism therefore came to mean more than factory machinery: it linked mass production with mass consumption.
Taylorism is related but distinct. It emphasizes the scientific study and optimization of individual work tasks, whereas Fordism is the broader production-and-consumption system associated with Ford’s factories. Toyotism later emphasized flexibility and just-in-time production, while Post-Fordism refers to economic arrangements described as succeeding or departing from the standardized Fordist model.