In 1913, iconic car manufacturer Henry Ford brought in conveyor belts to his production plants and this move caused a sea-change in mass-production. The conveyor belt has, in the century-and-a-bit since then, become the workhorse of the shopfloor, from uranium mines to postal sorting offices. Henry Ford didn’t invent the belt, however Ford may have been the bringer-in of mass-production with the help of conveyor belts, but he wasn’t the inventor, or even the first to use them. In the late eighteenth century, mines and railyards were using basic conveyor belts. These belts – made from leather and thick canvas…
How Conveyor Belts Have Changed









