The Assembly Line Started in a Slaughterhouse

The moving assembly line didn't start at a car company. It started in a slaughterhouse.

Henry Ford's team watched Chicago meatpackers move carcasses past workers on overhead trolleys, each person making one cut. They turned that disassembly line into an assembly line, and it changed how almost everything gets made.

I think about that story a lot.

Inside any category, everyone reads the same reports, hires from the same companies and goes to the same conferences. Over time, the thinking converges. Teams polish the same ideas instead of finding new ones.

More research on your own customers rarely breaks that loop. Time with people who solve a similar problem in a completely different world often does. A hotel concierge knows a lot about loyalty. A chef knows a lot about consistency at scale. A theater director knows a lot about first impressions.

Watching them work makes the assumptions your category stopped questioning suddenly visible.

It's the idea behind every Insight Immersion we've run since 2008.

What's the best idea your team ever borrowed from a completely different industry?

Related reading: Looking Outside Your Industry Is the Only Way to Win

Curious what an Insight Immersion could uncover for your team? Plan your Insight Immersion.