It may, therefore, simplify the history of mass production and the description of its principles if the experience of this company is taken as a basis. It has been already suggested that mass pro duction is possible only through the ability of the public to absorb large quantities of the commodity thus produced. These corn modities were formerly but are no longer limited to necessities and conveniences. The greatest development of mass production methods has occurred in the production of conveniences. The motor vehicle represents a basic and continuous convenience transportation.
Mass production begins, then, in the conception of a public need of which the public may not as yet be conscious and proceeds on the principle that use-convenience must be matched by price convenience. Under this principle the element of service remains uppermost ; profit and expansion are trusted to emerge as conse quences. As to which precedes the other, consumption or pro duction, experiences will differ. But granted that the vision of
the public need is correct, and the commodity adapted to meet it, the impulse to increased production may come in anticipation of demand, or in response to demand, but, in any case, the resulting consumption is always utilized to obtain such increase of quality, or such decrease of cost, or both, as shall secure still greater use convenience and price-convenience. As these increase, consump tion increases, making possible still greater production advantages, and so on to a fulfilment that is not yet in view.
The commodities that conduce to civilized living are thus far enjoyed by only a small fraction of the world's inhabitants. The experience of the Ford Motor Company has been that mass production precedes mass consumption and makes it possible, by reducing costs and thus permitting both greater use-convenience and price-convenience. If the production is increased, costs can be reduced. If production is increased 500% costs may be cut so%, and this decrease in cost, with its accompanying decrease in selling price, will probably multiply by io the number of people who can conveniently buy the product.