The more Deereponderedthe situation, the more convinced he became that a highlypolishedsteelplow blade-instead of the conventionalcast-iron model-couldsolvetheproblem.
The miniature building began as a detailed 3-D software rendering before the physical model was built to iron out all the intricacies of connecting the units in the full-scale building.
Times have changed since Henry Ford made the River Rouge complex in Dearborn, Michigan, into the ultimate in vertical integration, with iron ore going in one end and shiny Model A's coming out the other.
The fundamental model we teach MBAs for thinking about manufacturing is the value chain, a simple model that describes the value adding steps that take a low value material like iron ore and turn it into a high value product like a Ferrari Testarossa.