{"id":2011,"date":"2012-01-13T16:15:44","date_gmt":"2012-01-13T20:15:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/graphicsociology\/?p=2011"},"modified":"2012-01-13T17:44:50","modified_gmt":"2012-01-13T21:44:50","slug":"deconstruction-diagram-of-a-ford-plant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/graphicsociology\/2012\/01\/13\/deconstruction-diagram-of-a-ford-plant\/","title":{"rendered":"Deconstruction Diagram of a Ford Plant"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Deconstructing<\/a>
Deconstructing a Ford plant | The Atlantic<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

What works<\/h3>\n

This diagram of the closure of a Ford plant identifies both physical and temporal processes that a marvel of modern manufacturing has to undergo in order to cease production in a rational way. Environmental damage has to be mitigated – the paint shop is especially toxic and it seems to take workers years to handle that. [Let me register my vote here for automotive paneling that can be modified without paint or other dreadfully toxic processes. Surely, there has to be a better way. Sandblasting?] <\/p>\n

The diagram is very smart. It maintains the size of the Ford plant – the thing takes up most of the visual space. Clearly, it could have taken up less space and given over more space to various explanatory text blocks and additional-information diagrams in sidebars, but I think that approach would have diminished the gargantuan nature of both the plant itself and the processes of shutting it down. <\/p>\n

Second, the integration of a timeline measured by number of workers employed is just the perfect layer of information to pull the rest of the text-boxes together as a narrative. The timeline makes the whole graphic complete.<\/p>\n

Third, I don’t mind the length of the text in the text blocks. It seems about right to me.<\/p>\n

What needs work<\/h3>\n

I could have used some additional information about the relative uniqueness or typical-ness of an automotive plant closure (or even various elements of the plant closure process). The New York Times article Developers Revive Closed Auto Plants<\/a> notes that about half of the nation’s 263 closed auto plants have been revived one way or another. In one case, an old Ford transmission factory now houses a community college with a 4-year nursing program on one corner, an aluminum scrap processor on another, a mobile facilities manufacturer in a third location, but is still more than half vacant. I was curious while looking at this graphic: Would Ford have had to go through the same kind of process with a transmission factory (they don’t paint transmissions so it seems it should have been easier in that regard)? When a plant is going to be repurposed, does Ford still have to do all the same ‘closing time’ activities or do those become the responsibilities of the new owner? Is that a negotiable term? <\/p>\n

While a graphic would have been hard-pressed to answer all of those questions, I was hoping it would be able to at least address the idea that plants are both closing altogether and being repurposed – two related but not synonymous occurrences. In some places where the plants are closing, municipalities demand that their former owners take them down to slabs under the assumption that a slab is more appealing to a new owner than a facility that may need to be torn down and rebuilt.<\/p>\n

Overall, I think the graphic is successful but could be better with more contextual information. I know some of that was in the article, but I am only reviewing the graphic, which I think should be able to stand alone.<\/p>\n

References<\/h3>\n

Peck, Don. (April 2009) Disassembly Line<\/a>. The Atlantic.<\/p>\n

Christie, Bryan. (2009) Disassembly Line<\/a> [information graphic]. The Atlantic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What works This diagram of the closure of a Ford plant identifies both physical and temporal processes that a marvel of modern manufacturing has to undergo in order to cease production in a rational way. Environmental damage has to be mitigated – the paint shop is especially toxic and it seems to take workers years […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":218,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[13330,13328,13329,7580,143],"class_list":["post-2011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-atlantic-monthly","tag-automotive","tag-ford-plant","tag-infrastructure","tag-labor"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/graphicsociology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/graphicsociology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/graphicsociology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/graphicsociology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/218"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/graphicsociology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2011"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/graphicsociology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2011\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2021,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/graphicsociology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2011\/revisions\/2021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/graphicsociology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/graphicsociology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/graphicsociology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}