Charles E. Sorensen
Encyclopedia
Charles Emil Sorensen was a Danish-American principal of the Ford Motor Company
during its first four decades. Like most other managers at Ford during those decades, he did not have an official job title, but he served functionally as a patternmaker
, foundry engineer
, mechanical engineer
, industrial engineer
, production manager
, and executive
in charge of all production. By the end of his career, he had become an officer
of the company, being a vice president and a director. Speaking figuratively, he saw himself during most of his career as "a viceroy ruling the production province of the Ford empire", and at the end as a "regent
" who managed the company during the "interregnum
" between the reigns of Henry Ford I
and Henry Ford II
.
to the United States
with his parents when he was four years old. He first worked as a surveyor's assistant, then apprenticed at the Jewett Stove Works in Buffalo, New York
as a patternmaker and foundryman. In 1900, the family moved to Detroit, and while working at a foundry in Detroit, Michigan
he met Henry Ford. In 1905 he accepted a job as a patternmaker at Ford Motor Company. By 1907 he was head of the pattern department. He translated Henry Ford's ideas, which came to him in the form of simple sketches or descriptions, into prototypes and into the patterns from which the parts would be cast.
Sorensen (with others, notably Walter Flanders
, Clarence Avery
, and Ed Martin
) is credited with developing the first automotive assembly line
, having formulated the idea of moving a product (for cars, this would be in the form of the chassis) through multiple workstations. His innovations were widely applied to the mass production of complex products that average people could afford.
On a Sunday in 1910, in the Piquette Plant
, Sorensen and another Ford executive, Charles Lewis, tested his idea. Apparently, by the end of the day he had determined that moving a car in a straight line from one end of the factory to the other, with parts added along the way by specialized workers performing repetitive tasks (with the stockrooms also placed strategically along the line) was the most efficient and therefore cheapest way to build an automobile. To prove his theory, he then towed an automobile chassis on a rope over his shoulders through the Ford plant while others added the parts.
plant in 1910, where he was second in command to production chief Peter (Ed) Martin. He then helped with the development of the Fordson tractor and modernization of Edsel Ford's Lincoln
when purchased by Ford from Henry M. Leland
in 1922. Following transfer of auto assembly to the Rouge
in the late 1920s, he was a "key leader" in manufacturing as number two man to Ed Martin, who was made vice president of manufacturing in 1924. He was manager of production planning and development. "Ed Martin, who was plant superintendent, and I practically lived at the Rouge". It has been said he considered himself the "Head of Production", and Henry Ford's "right-hand man", although he was only one of at least six company leaders claiming that distinction. (Ford's practice of telling his men to "[j]ust go out there and run the plant […] [a]nd don't worry about titles" contributed to these variations in viewpoints.)
Sorensen's help in innovating foundry practice for mass production earned for him from Henry Ford the nickname of "Cast-Iron Charlie" during the company's first decade, when he invented (or at least independently reinvented) the use of metal patterns instead of wood ones to withstand the huge number of moldmaking cycles needed for mass production, and methods of core
registration to accurately position the cores without relying on the sand under them to assist in the registration. In 1928 Sorensen joined Henry and Edsel Ford as the three US directors—out of seven—on the board of Ford's new re-organized independent European operations
. During the 1930s Sorensen was also responsible for production techniques allowing the manufacture of a sophisticated V-8
engine block from a single casting, and using a more automated foundry workflow than ever before. The resulting Ford Flathead engine
continued in production until the early 1950s; a derivative design was used in French military vehicles into the 1990s.
During the early 1940s Sorensen had responsibility for Ford's defense contracts, including Ford's Jeep and aircraft engines and production of the B-24 Liberator
bomber. He led the design of the Willow Run
plant, where the B-24s were made, applying all of his previous experience in the development and refinement of mass production methods. Each was made up of 488,193 parts and they were turned out at a still astonishing rate of one per hour; the previous production rate was one per day. He was knighted by the king of Denmark and made a member of the Order of the Dannebrog
for his accomplishments.
During his career he was noted for his brilliance in organization and his hard-driving personality, and also for insensitivity to others and an explosive temper. Sorensen's memoir intended to show how the Ford industrial empire was kept intact, and his hard struggle to bring Henry Ford II
to the direction of its destinies. After leaving the Navy, a 24-year-old Henry Ford II joined company management as a vice-president on December 15, 1943. Sorensen, who had mentored the young Ford, was not offered a major role by him. He requested retirement in December 1943, to be effective January 1, 1944, as previously agreed with the elder Ford in 1941. His retirement was effective on March 13, 1944. He then accepted a position as president of automaker Willys-Overland, presiding over the transition from wartime production back to civilian-market production. Sorensen effectively retired after clashes with the board, but retained a title and salary as vice-chairman from 1946 until full retirement in 1950. Willys became Kaiser Jeep
and was later acquired by American Motors Corporation (AMC). AMC was later bought out by Chrysler
.
Sorensen retired in Florida
and US Virgin Islands. He had extensive land holdings in Cuba
(which were seized by the new government after the Cuban revolution). He died on August 28, 1968 in Bethesda Naval Hospital, aka National Naval Medical Center
in Maryland
. He is buried in Miami Beach, Florida
. He was preceded in death by his first wife Helen (née Mitchell) Sorensen and son Clifford Sorensen.
Ford Motor Company
Ford Motor Company is an American multinational automaker based in Dearborn, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. The automaker was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. In addition to the Ford and Lincoln brands, Ford also owns a small stake in Mazda in Japan and Aston Martin in the UK...
during its first four decades. Like most other managers at Ford during those decades, he did not have an official job title, but he served functionally as a patternmaker
Pattern (casting)
In casting, a pattern is a replica of the object to be cast, used to prepare the cavity into which molten material will be poured during the casting process.Patterns used in sand casting may be made of wood, metal, plastics or other materials...
, foundry engineer
Foundry
A foundry is a factory that produces metal castings. Metals are cast into shapes by melting them into a liquid, pouring the metal in a mold, and removing the mold material or casting after the metal has solidified as it cools. The most common metals processed are aluminum and cast iron...
, mechanical engineer
Mechanical engineering
Mechanical engineering is a discipline of engineering that applies the principles of physics and materials science for analysis, design, manufacturing, and maintenance of mechanical systems. It is the branch of engineering that involves the production and usage of heat and mechanical power for the...
, industrial engineer
Industrial engineering
Industrial engineering is a branch of engineering dealing with the optimization of complex processes or systems. It is concerned with the development, improvement, implementation and evaluation of integrated systems of people, money, knowledge, information, equipment, energy, materials, analysis...
, production manager
Program management
Program management or programme management is the process of managing several related projects, often with the intention of improving an organization's performance...
, and executive
Senior management
Senior management, executive management, or management team is generally a team of individuals at the highest level of organizational management who have the day-to-day responsibilities of managing a company or corporation, they hold specific executive powers conferred onto them with and by...
in charge of all production. By the end of his career, he had become an officer
Corporate title
Publicly and privately held for-profit corporations confer corporate titles or business titles on company officials as a means of identifying their function in the organization...
of the company, being a vice president and a director. Speaking figuratively, he saw himself during most of his career as "a viceroy ruling the production province of the Ford empire", and at the end as a "regent
Regent
A regent, from the Latin regens "one who reigns", is a person selected to act as head of state because the ruler is a minor, not present, or debilitated. Currently there are only two ruling Regencies in the world, sovereign Liechtenstein and the Malaysian constitutive state of Terengganu...
" who managed the company during the "interregnum
Interregnum
An interregnum is a period of discontinuity or "gap" in a government, organization, or social order...
" between the reigns of Henry Ford I
Henry Ford
Henry Ford was an American industrialist, the founder of the Ford Motor Company, and sponsor of the development of the assembly line technique of mass production. His introduction of the Model T automobile revolutionized transportation and American industry...
and Henry Ford II
Henry Ford II
Henry Ford II , commonly known as "HF2" and "Hank the Deuce", was the son of Edsel Ford and grandson of Henry Ford...
.
Early life and early career
Sorensen emigrated from DenmarkDenmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
with his parents when he was four years old. He first worked as a surveyor's assistant, then apprenticed at the Jewett Stove Works in Buffalo, New York
Buffalo, New York
Buffalo is the second most populous city in the state of New York, after New York City. Located in Western New York on the eastern shores of Lake Erie and at the head of the Niagara River across from Fort Erie, Ontario, Buffalo is the seat of Erie County and the principal city of the...
as a patternmaker and foundryman. In 1900, the family moved to Detroit, and while working at a foundry in Detroit, Michigan
Detroit, Michigan
Detroit is the major city among the primary cultural, financial, and transportation centers in the Metro Detroit area, a region of 5.2 million people. As the seat of Wayne County, the city of Detroit is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan and serves as a major port on the Detroit River...
he met Henry Ford. In 1905 he accepted a job as a patternmaker at Ford Motor Company. By 1907 he was head of the pattern department. He translated Henry Ford's ideas, which came to him in the form of simple sketches or descriptions, into prototypes and into the patterns from which the parts would be cast.
Sorensen (with others, notably Walter Flanders
Walter Flanders
Walter Emmett Flanders was a U.S. American industrialist in the machine tool and automotive industries and was an early mass production expert....
, Clarence Avery
Clarence W. Avery
Clarence Willard Avery was a driving force behind Ford Motor Company's moving assembly line, and was president and chairman of auto-body supplier Murray Corporation.- Early life :...
, and Ed Martin
Peter E. Martin
Peter Edmund Martin was a leading early production executive of the Ford Motor Company....
) is credited with developing the first automotive assembly line
Assembly line
An assembly line is a manufacturing process in which parts are added to a product in a sequential manner using optimally planned logistics to create a finished product much faster than with handcrafting-type methods...
, having formulated the idea of moving a product (for cars, this would be in the form of the chassis) through multiple workstations. His innovations were widely applied to the mass production of complex products that average people could afford.
On a Sunday in 1910, in the Piquette Plant
Piquette Plant
The Ford Piquette Avenue Plant is located at 411 Piquette Avenue in Detroit, Michigan, within the Piquette Avenue Industrial Historic District. It was the second home of Ford Motor Company automobile production...
, Sorensen and another Ford executive, Charles Lewis, tested his idea. Apparently, by the end of the day he had determined that moving a car in a straight line from one end of the factory to the other, with parts added along the way by specialized workers performing repetitive tasks (with the stockrooms also placed strategically along the line) was the most efficient and therefore cheapest way to build an automobile. To prove his theory, he then towed an automobile chassis on a rope over his shoulders through the Ford plant while others added the parts.
Later contributions
Sorensen was a major contributor to the launch of the Highland ParkHighland Park Ford Plant
The Highland Park Ford Plant is a former factory located in Highland Park, Michigan at 91 Manchester Avenue . The second production facility for the Model T automobile, it became a National Historic Landmark in 1978.-Description:...
plant in 1910, where he was second in command to production chief Peter (Ed) Martin. He then helped with the development of the Fordson tractor and modernization of Edsel Ford's Lincoln
Lincoln (automobile)
Lincoln is an American luxury vehicle brand of the Ford Motor Company. Lincoln vehicles are sold mostly in North America.-History:The company was founded in August 1915 by Henry M. Leland, one of the founders of Cadillac . During World War I, he left Cadillac which was sold to General Motors...
when purchased by Ford from Henry M. Leland
Henry M. Leland
Henry Martyn Leland was a machinist, inventor, engineer and automotive entrepreneur who founded the two premier American luxury marques, Cadillac and Lincoln. Retrieved December 30, 2008....
in 1922. Following transfer of auto assembly to the Rouge
River Rouge Plant
The Ford River Rouge Complex is a Ford Motor Company automobile factory complex located in Dearborn, Michigan, along the Rouge River, upstream from its confluence with the Detroit River at Zug Island...
in the late 1920s, he was a "key leader" in manufacturing as number two man to Ed Martin, who was made vice president of manufacturing in 1924. He was manager of production planning and development. "Ed Martin, who was plant superintendent, and I practically lived at the Rouge". It has been said he considered himself the "Head of Production", and Henry Ford's "right-hand man", although he was only one of at least six company leaders claiming that distinction. (Ford's practice of telling his men to "[j]ust go out there and run the plant […] [a]nd don't worry about titles" contributed to these variations in viewpoints.)
Sorensen's help in innovating foundry practice for mass production earned for him from Henry Ford the nickname of "Cast-Iron Charlie" during the company's first decade, when he invented (or at least independently reinvented) the use of metal patterns instead of wood ones to withstand the huge number of moldmaking cycles needed for mass production, and methods of core
Core (manufacturing)
A core is a device used in casting and molding processes to produce internal cavities and reentrant angles. The core is normally a disposable item that is destroyed to get it out of the piece. They are most commonly used in sand casting, but are also used in injection molding.An intriguing example...
registration to accurately position the cores without relying on the sand under them to assist in the registration. In 1928 Sorensen joined Henry and Edsel Ford as the three US directors—out of seven—on the board of Ford's new re-organized independent European operations
Ford of Britain
Ford of Britain is a British wholly owned subsidiary of Ford of Europe, a subsidiary of Ford Motor Company. Its business started in 1909 and has its registered office in Brentwood, Essex...
. During the 1930s Sorensen was also responsible for production techniques allowing the manufacture of a sophisticated V-8
V8 engine
A V8 engine is a V engine with eight cylinders mounted on the crankcase in two banks of four cylinders, in most cases set at a right angle to each other but sometimes at a narrower angle, with all eight pistons driving a common crankshaft....
engine block from a single casting, and using a more automated foundry workflow than ever before. The resulting Ford Flathead engine
Ford Flathead engine
The Ford flathead V8 was a V8 engine of the flathead type, designed by the Ford Motor Company and built by Ford and various licensees...
continued in production until the early 1950s; a derivative design was used in French military vehicles into the 1990s.
During the early 1940s Sorensen had responsibility for Ford's defense contracts, including Ford's Jeep and aircraft engines and production of the B-24 Liberator
B-24 Liberator
The Consolidated B-24 Liberator was an American heavy bomber, designed by Consolidated Aircraft of San Diego, California. It was known within the company as the Model 32, and a small number of early models were sold under the name LB-30, for Land Bomber...
bomber. He led the design of the Willow Run
Willow Run
The Willow Run manufacturing plant, located between Ypsilanti and Belleville, Michigan, was constructed during World War II by Ford Motor Company for the mass production of the B-24 Liberator military aircraft....
plant, where the B-24s were made, applying all of his previous experience in the development and refinement of mass production methods. Each was made up of 488,193 parts and they were turned out at a still astonishing rate of one per hour; the previous production rate was one per day. He was knighted by the king of Denmark and made a member of the Order of the Dannebrog
Order of the Dannebrog
The Order of the Dannebrog is an Order of Denmark, instituted in 1671 by Christian V. It resulted from a move in 1660 to break the absolutism of the nobility. The Order was only to comprise 50 noble Knights in one class plus the Master of the Order, i.e. the Danish monarch, and his sons...
for his accomplishments.
During his career he was noted for his brilliance in organization and his hard-driving personality, and also for insensitivity to others and an explosive temper. Sorensen's memoir intended to show how the Ford industrial empire was kept intact, and his hard struggle to bring Henry Ford II
Henry Ford II
Henry Ford II , commonly known as "HF2" and "Hank the Deuce", was the son of Edsel Ford and grandson of Henry Ford...
to the direction of its destinies. After leaving the Navy, a 24-year-old Henry Ford II joined company management as a vice-president on December 15, 1943. Sorensen, who had mentored the young Ford, was not offered a major role by him. He requested retirement in December 1943, to be effective January 1, 1944, as previously agreed with the elder Ford in 1941. His retirement was effective on March 13, 1944. He then accepted a position as president of automaker Willys-Overland, presiding over the transition from wartime production back to civilian-market production. Sorensen effectively retired after clashes with the board, but retained a title and salary as vice-chairman from 1946 until full retirement in 1950. Willys became Kaiser Jeep
Kaiser Jeep
Kaiser Jeep was the result of the merger between the Kaiser-Frazer Corporation, an independent automaker based in Willow Run, Michigan, and the Toledo, Ohio-based Willys-Overland Company....
and was later acquired by American Motors Corporation (AMC). AMC was later bought out by Chrysler
Chrysler
Chrysler Group LLC is a multinational automaker headquartered in Auburn Hills, Michigan, USA. Chrysler was first organized as the Chrysler Corporation in 1925....
.
Sorensen retired in Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
and US Virgin Islands. He had extensive land holdings in Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
(which were seized by the new government after the Cuban revolution). He died on August 28, 1968 in Bethesda Naval Hospital, aka National Naval Medical Center
National Naval Medical Center
The National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, USA — commonly known as the Bethesda Naval Hospital — was for decades the flagship of the United States Navy's system of medical centers. A federal institution, it conducted medical and dental research as well as providing health care for...
in Maryland
Maryland
Maryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...
. He is buried in Miami Beach, Florida
Miami Beach, Florida
Miami Beach is a coastal resort city in Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States, incorporated on March 26, 1915. The municipality is located on a barrier island between the Atlantic Ocean and Biscayne Bay, the latter which separates the Beach from Miami city proper...
. He was preceded in death by his first wife Helen (née Mitchell) Sorensen and son Clifford Sorensen.
Sources
- Bryan, Ford R. (1993). Henry's Lieutenants. ISBN 0-8143-2428-2.
- Sorensen, Charles M. (great grandson).
- Ohno, TaiichiTaiichi Ohnowas a prominent Japanese businessman. He is considered to be the father of the Toyota Production System, which became Lean Manufacturing in the U.S. He devised the seven wastes as part of this system. He wrote several books about the system, including Toyota Production System: Beyond Large-Scale...
(1988), Toyota Production System: Beyond Large-Scale Production, Productivity Press, ISBN 0-915299-14-3.