New push-through process

Gotttlieb Duttweiler believed strongly in the rationalisation of work processes, an approach popularised by the American car manufacturer Henry Ford. Duttweiler developed a sophisticated system for the daily loading of his sales vans that saved both time and money.
Six months after Migros AG is founded, Gottlieb Duttweiler explains in a lecture that he uses the Ford principles in his company. Like the inventor of the assembly line, he tries to effect the “greatest possible utilisation of the working hours”. He meticulously studies employees’ working procedures, trying to find ways to make them more efficient. When Duttweiler buys the Ford Model A in 1927 as a new, larger sales van, he invents the one-way system. The goods are stored in low metal drawers, which are inserted on one side of the van and pulled out for sales on the other. This speeds up the loading procedure and guarantees that there will be no shelf-warmers as the older stock is sold first. Thanks to the push-through process, the goods are, according to Duttweiler, at last consecutively pushed “from the Migros packaging warehouse right into the kitchen”; that is to say, “in perpetual movement always in a direct line from the production location to the final consumers”. Thus, he triumphantly reports, the “modern sales machine can be considered to be perfect”. For the drivers, the rationalisation of the loading and sales procedures has far-reaching consequences. Although the number of articles sold is increased to 60, Gottlieb Duttweiler abolishes the role of the sales assistants who have up until now accompanied the vans. Only when there are so many articles that the work is no longer manageable for one person are the sales assistants reintroduced – in the form of saleswomen.