The Henry Ford museum in Dearborn, Mich., contains an “exploded” 1924 Model T touring car, its parts arrayed in the order of their assembly, echoing the component diagrams in the vehicle’s manuals.

Ford’s assembly line was inspired by the “disassembly line” that engineer William Klann observed in a Chicago slaughterhouse, in which one worker at a conveyor belt performed the same task repeatedly without himself moving. Ford’s line divided his car’s assembly into 45 steps, producing each unit in 93 minutes.