Craft production is manufacturing by hand, with or without the aid of tools. The term "craft production" describes manufacturing techniques that are used in handicraft trades. These were the common methods of manufacture in the pre-industrialized world.
The craft manufacturing process results in a unique final product. While the product may be of extremely high quality, the uniqueness can be detrimental as seen in the case of early automobiles.
Womack, Jones and Roos in the book The Machine That Changed the World detailed that early automobiles were craft produced. Because each vehicle was unique, replacement parts had to be manufactured from scratch or at least customized to fit a specific vehicle. The advent of mass production and the standardized, interchangeable parts guaranteed a parts' compatibility with a variety of vehicle models.
Mass production has many drawbacks to craft production, including that production quality can be lower than a craft-produced item. For example, in some mass-production automobile manufacturing facilities, craftsmen rework flawed, mass-produced vehicles to give the appearance of a quality product.
Lean manufacturing aims to bring back or exceed the quality of craft production and remedy the inefficiency of mass production through the elimination of waste.
Craft production is a part of the informal economy in many cities, such as Istanbul, Turkey where the informal craft economy is a vital source of income for the Turkish craftspeople. [1] Craft markets are highly dependent on social interactions, and verbal training which results in variations in the goods produced. Often, the craft economy consists of craft neighbourhoods, by which a community is structured on the craft activity present in the area. [2]
Often used in the household, many craft goods such as historic Mumun Pottery in Korea, originated from the need for economic alternatives to meet household needs. Changes in the craft economies have often coincided with changes in household organization, and social transformations, as in Korea in the Early to Middle Mumun Period. [3]
Given that craft production requires an intimate knowledge of methods of production from an experienced individual of that craft, the connection between trades people is highly evident in craft communities. The production of many crafts have a high technical demand, and therefore require full-time specialization of the skill-set in the form of workshops, or verbal, hands-on training. [2] The verbal interaction between teacher and student encourages strong social bonds, which ultimately leads to cohesive communities, typical of modern day craft communities.
Craft economies are highly related to place. Craft-specialization explores how portable goods are integral to the social relations of a community, and links groups of people together through the creation of tangible items. [1]
Places where craft economic activity is taking place indicate strong linkages between sociopolitical organization and societal complexity. [4] These communities are often tight-knit, with strong linkages to materials produced and sold, as well as mutual respect for fellow tradesmen in the market place.
Lean manufacturing is a method of manufacturing goods aimed primarily at reducing times within the production system as well as response times from suppliers and customers. It is closely related to another concept called just-in-time manufacturing. Just-in-time manufacturing tries to match production to demand by only supplying goods that have been ordered and focus on efficiency, productivity, and reduction of "wastes" for the producer and supplier of goods. Lean manufacturing adopts the just-in-time approach and additionally focuses on reducing cycle, flow, and throughput times by further eliminating activities that do not add any value for the customer. Lean manufacturing also involves people who work outside of the manufacturing process, such as in marketing and customer service.
In sociology, an industrial society is a society driven by the use of technology and machinery to enable mass production, supporting a large population with a high capacity for division of labour. Such a structure developed in the Western world in the period of time following the Industrial Revolution, and replaced the agrarian societies of the pre-modern, pre-industrial age. Industrial societies are generally mass societies, and may be succeeded by an information society. They are often contrasted with traditional societies.
Since the start of the twentieth century, the role of cars has become highly important, though controversial. They are used throughout the world and have become the most popular mode of transport in many of the more developed countries. In developing countries cars are fewer and the effects of the car on society are less visible, however they are nonetheless significant. The spread of cars built upon earlier changes in transport brought by railways and bicycles. They introduced sweeping changes in employment patterns, social interactions, infrastructure and the distribution of goods.
The Toyota Production System (TPS) is an integrated socio-technical system, developed by Toyota, that comprises its management philosophy and practices. The TPS is a management system that organizes manufacturing and logistics for the automobile manufacturer, including interaction with suppliers and customers. The system is a major precursor of the more generic "lean manufacturing". Taiichi Ohno and Eiji Toyoda, Japanese industrial engineers, developed the system between 1948 and 1975.
Automotive engineering, along with aerospace engineering and naval architecture, is a branch of vehicle engineering, incorporating elements of mechanical, electrical, electronic, software, and safety engineering as applied to the design, manufacture and operation of motorcycles, automobiles, and trucks and their respective engineering subsystems. It also includes modification of vehicles. Manufacturing domain deals with the creation and assembling the whole parts of automobiles is also included in it. The automotive engineering field is research intensive and involves direct application of mathematical models and formulas. The study of automotive engineering is to design, develop, fabricate, and test vehicles or vehicle components from the concept stage to production stage. Production, development, and manufacturing are the three major functions in this field.
Post-Fordism is a term used to describe the growth of new production methods defined by flexible production, the individualization of labor relations and fragmentation of markets into distinct segments, after the demise of Fordist production. It was widely advocated by French Marxist economists and American labor economists in the 1970s and 1980s. Definitions of the nature and scope of post-Fordism vary considerably and are a matter of debate among scholars.
Peer production is a way of producing goods and services that relies on self-organizing communities of individuals. In such communities, the labor of many people is coordinated towards a shared outcome.
The Mumun pottery period is an archaeological era in Korean prehistory that dates to approximately 1500-300 BC. This period is named after the Korean name for undecorated or plain cooking and storage vessels that form a large part of the pottery assemblage over the entire length of the period, but especially 850-550 BC.
Fremont Assembly was a General Motors automobile factory in Fremont, California, in the San Francisco area, replacing the older Oakland Assembly. Groundbreaking for the plant occurred in September 1961, and the plant produced its first vehicle on May 1, 1963. Production continued through March 1, 1982, when the plant was closed after production problems. After closure, the plant was refurbished and reopened as the more successful NUMMI joint-venture between GM and Toyota between 1984 and 2010, and later became the Tesla Factory in 2010.
A workcell is an arrangement of resources in a manufacturing environment to improve the quality, speed and cost of the process. Workcells are designed to improve these by improving process flow and eliminating waste. They are based on the principles of Lean Manufacturing as described in The Machine That Changed the World by Womack, Jones and Roos.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to manufacturing:
The Machine That Changed the World is a 1990 book about automobile production, written by James P. Womack, Daniel T. Jones, and Daniel Roos.
Production leveling, also known as production smoothing or – by its Japanese original term – heijunka (平準化), is a technique for reducing the mura (unevenness) which in turn reduces muda (waste). It was vital to the development of production efficiency in the Toyota Production System and lean manufacturing. The goal is to produce intermediate goods at a constant rate so that further processing may also be carried out at a constant and predictable rate.
Manufacturing engineering or production engineering is a branch of professional engineering that shares many common concepts and ideas with other fields of engineering such as mechanical, chemical, electrical, and industrial engineering. Manufacturing engineering requires the ability to plan the practices of manufacturing; to research and to develop tools, processes, machines, and equipment; and to integrate the facilities and systems for producing quality products with the optimum expenditure of capital.
Lean IT is the extension of lean manufacturing and lean services principles to the development and management of information technology (IT) products and services. Its central concern, applied in the context of IT, is the elimination of waste, where waste is work that adds no value to a product or service.
The Program on Vehicle and Mobility Innovation (PVMI) is the oldest and largest international research consortium aimed at analyzing the global automotive industry.
The Kingdom of Zimbabwe was a Shona kingdom located in modern-day Zimbabwe. Its capital was Great Zimbabwe, in today's Masvingo, which is the largest stone structure in precolonial Southern Africa. Around 1300, Great Zimbabwe replaced Mapungubwe as the most important trading centre in the interior, exporting gold to the Indian Ocean trade via Swahili city-states. The capital had a population of 10,000 and the Zimbabwe state likely covered 50,000 km².
Lean enterprise is a practice focused on value creation for the end customer with minimal waste and processes. Principals derive from lean manufacturing and Six Sigma. The lean principles were popularized by Toyota in the automobile manufacturing industry, and subsequently the electronics and internet software industries.
Economy is conventionally defined as a function for production and distribution of goods and services by multiple agents within a society and/or geographical place An economy is hierarchical, made up of individuals that aggregate to make larger organizations such as governments and gives value to goods and services. The Maya economy had no universal form of trade exchange other than resources and services that could be provided among groups such as cacao beans and copper bells. Though there is limited archeological evidence to study the trade of perishable goods, it is noteworthy to explore the trade networks of artifacts and other luxury items that were likely transported together.
Daniel T. Jones is an English author and researcher. He won the Shingo Prize for Operational Excellence in the Research and Professional Publication category multiple times for his books The Machine that Changed the World, Lean Thinking: Banish Waste and Create Wealth in Your Organization and Seeing the Whole: Mapping the Extended Value Stream.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)