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Manufacturing is the production of goods through the use of labor, machines, tools, and chemical or biological processing or formulation. It is the essence of secondary sector of the economy. [1] The term may refer to a range of human activity, from handicraft to high-tech, but it is most commonly applied to industrial design, in which raw materials from the primary sector are transformed into finished goods on a large scale. Such goods may be sold to other manufacturers for the production of other more complex products (such as aircraft, household appliances, furniture, sports equipment or automobiles), or distributed via the tertiary industry to end users and consumers (usually through wholesalers, who in turn sell to retailers, who then sell them to individual customers).
Manufacturing engineering, or the manufacturing process, are the steps through which raw materials are transformed into a final product. The manufacturing process begins with the product design, and materials specification from which the product is made. These materials are then modified through manufacturing processes to become the required part.
Modern manufacturing includes all intermediate processes required in the production and integration of a product's components. Some industries, such as semiconductor and steel manufacturers, use the term fabrication instead.
The manufacturing sector is closely connected with the engineering and industrial design. Examples of major manufacturers in North America include General Motors Corporation, General Electric, Procter & Gamble, General Dynamics, Boeing, Pfizer, Precision Castparts, and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles. Examples in Europe include Volkswagen Group, Siemens, BASF and Michelin. Examples in Asia include Toyota, Yamaha, Panasonic, LG, Samsung and Tata Motors.
Manufacturing began in the 19th century. [2] It was usually carried out by single skilled artisans with assistants. Training was by apprenticeship. In much of the pre-industrial world, the guild system protected the privileges and trade secrets of urban artisans.
In the pre-industrial world, most manufacturing occurred in rural areas, where household-based manufacturing served as a supplemental subsistence strategy to agriculture (and continues to do so in places). Entrepreneurs organized a number of manufacturing households into a single enterprise through the putting-out system.
The factory system was first adopted in Britain at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in the late 18th century and later spread around the world. [3] The main characteristic of the factory system is the use of machinery, originally powered by water or steam and later by electricity. Increased use of economies of scale, the centralization of factories, and standardization of interchangeable parts were adopted in the American system of manufacturing in the nineteenth century.
The mechanized assembly line was introduced to assemble parts in a repeatable fashion, with individual workers performing specific steps during the process. This led to significant increases in efficiency, lowering the cost of the end process. Later, automation was introduced to incrementally replace human operators, a trend that has accelerated with the development of the computer and the robot.
Manufacturing in the Soviet Union was based on collectivism.
Emerging technologies have provided some new growth in advanced manufacturing employment opportunities in the Manufacturing Belt in the United States. Manufacturing provides important material support for national infrastructure and for national defense.
On the other hand, most manufacturing may involve significant social and environmental costs. The clean-up costs of hazardous waste, for example, may outweigh the benefits of a product that creates it. Hazardous materials may expose workers to health risks. These costs are now well known and there is effort to address them by improving efficiency, reducing waste, using industrial symbiosis, and eliminating harmful chemicals.
The negative costs of manufacturing can also be addressed legally. Developed countries regulate manufacturing activity with labor laws and environmental laws. Across the globe, manufacturers can be subject to regulations and pollution taxes to offset the environmental costs of manufacturing activities. Labor unions and craft guilds have played a historic role in the negotiation of worker rights and wages. Environment laws and labor protections that are available in developed nations may not be available in the third world. Tort law and product liability impose additional costs on manufacturing. These are significant dynamics in the ongoing process, occurring over the last few decades, of manufacture-based industries relocating operations to "developing-world" economies where the costs of production are significantly lower than in "developed-world" economies.
Manufacturing has unique health and safety challenges and has been recognized by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) as a priority industry sector in the National Occupational Research Agenda (NORA) to identify and provide intervention strategies regarding occupational health and safety issues. [4] [5]
Surveys and analyses of trends and issues in manufacturing and investment around the world focus on such things as:
In addition to general overviews, researchers have examined the features and factors affecting particular key aspects of manufacturing development. They have compared production and investment in a range of Western and non-Western countries and presented case studies of growth and performance in important individual industries and market-economic sectors. [6] [7]
On June 26, 2009, Jeff Immelt, the CEO of General Electric, called for the United States to increase its manufacturing base employment to 20% of the workforce, commenting that the U.S. has outsourced too much in some areas and can no longer rely on the financial sector and consumer spending to drive demand. [8] Further, while U.S. manufacturing performs well compared to the rest of the U.S. economy, research shows that it performs poorly compared to manufacturing in other high-wage countries. [9] A total of 3.2 million – one in six U.S. manufacturing jobs – have disappeared between 2000 and 2007. [10] In the UK, EEF the manufacturers organisation has led calls for the UK economy to be rebalanced to rely less on financial services and has actively promoted the manufacturing agenda.
These are the top 50 countries by total value of manufacturing output in US dollars for its noted year according to World Bank. [11]
Rank | Country/Region | Millions of $US | Year |
---|---|---|---|
World | 13,809,122 | 2019 | |
1 | ![]() | 3,896,345 | 2019 |
2 | ![]() | 2,173,319 | 2017 |
3 | ![]() | 1,027,967 | 2018 |
4 | ![]() | 747,731 | 2019 |
5 | ![]() | 416,903 | 2019 |
6 | ![]() | 394,531 | 2019 |
7 | ![]() | 298,442 | 2019 |
8 | ![]() | 287,764 | 2019 |
9 | ![]() | 266,634 | 2019 |
10 | ![]() | 243,114 | 2019 |
11 | ![]() | 222,544 | 2019 |
12 | ![]() | 220,503 | 2019 |
13 | ![]() | 217,852 | 2019 |
14 | ![]() | 154,833 | 2019 |
15 | ![]() | 151,724 | 2016 |
16 | ![]() | 143,017 | 2019 |
17 | ![]() | 137,544 | 2019 |
18 | ![]() | 131,718 | 2019 |
19 | ![]() | 119,868 | 2019 |
20 | ![]() | 100,011 | 2019 |
21 | ![]() | 99,648 | 2019 |
22 | ![]() | 99,438 | 2019 |
23 | ![]() | 78,657 | 2019 |
24 | ![]() | 78,279 | 2019 |
25 | ![]() | 74,710 | 2019 |
26 | ![]() | 73,677 | 2019 |
27 | ![]() | 69,568 | 2019 |
28 | ![]() | 69,262 | 2019 |
29 | ![]() | 63,569 | 2019 |
30 | ![]() | 58,236 | 2014 |
31 | ![]() | 57,726 | 2019 |
32 | ![]() | 57,284 | 2019 |
33 | ![]() | 55,270 | 2019 |
34 | ![]() | 53,417 | 2017 |
35 | ![]() | 51,634 | 2019 |
36 | ![]() | 48,241 | 2019 |
37 | ![]() | 47,834 | 2018 |
38 | ![]() | 45,507 | 2019 |
39 | ![]() | 44,314 | 2018 |
40 | ![]() | 43,172 | 2019 |
41 | ![]() | 42,453 | 2019 |
42 | ![]() | 41,400 | 2019 |
43 | ![]() | 41,278 | 2019 |
44 | ![]() | 38,670 | 2019 |
45 | ![]() | 36,727 | 2019 |
46 | ![]() | 35,439 | 2019 |
47 | ![]() | 34,658 | 2019 |
48 | ![]() | 30,283 | 2018 |
49 | ![]() | 29,349 | 2019 |
50 | ![]() | 28,733 | 2018 |
In microeconomics, economies of scale are the cost advantages that enterprises obtain due to their scale of operation, with cost per unit of output decreasing which causes scale increasing. At the basis of economies of scale there may be technical, statistical, organizational or related factors to the degree of market control.
The service sector is the third of the three economic sectors of the three-sector theory. The others are the secondary sector, and the primary sector.
The economy of Mauritius is a mixed developing economy based on agriculture, exports, financial services, and tourism. Since the 1980s, the government of Mauritius has sought to diversify the country's economy beyond its dependence on just agriculture, particularly sugar production. In terms of energy, Mauritius' endowment with alternative energy resources and good governance makes it one of the potential winners in the global transition to renewable energy and the country is ranked no. 8 among 156 nations in the index of geopolitical gains and losses after energy transition.
The economic concept of a capital good is as a "...series of heterogeneous commodities, each having specific technical characteristics ..." in the form of a durable good that is used in the production of goods or services. Capital goods are a particular form of economic good and are tangible property.
Offshoring is the relocation of a business process from one country to another—typically an operational process, such as manufacturing, or supporting processes, such as accounting. Typically this refers to a company business, although state governments may also employ offshoring. More recently, technical and administrative services have been offshored.
Workforce productivity is the amount of goods and services that a group of workers produce in a given amount of time. It is one of several types of productivity that economists measure. Workforce productivity, often referred to as labor productivity, is a measure for an organisation or company, a process, an industry, or a country.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to industry:
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to manufacturing:
Manufacturing 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.
The textile and clothing industries provide a single source of growth in Bangladesh's rapidly developing economy. Exports of textiles and garments are the principal source of foreign exchange earnings. By 2002 exports of textiles, clothing, and ready-made garments (RMG) accounted for 77% of Bangladesh's total merchandise exports.
Manufacturing in Ethiopia was, before 1957, dominated by cottage and handicraft industries which met most of the population's needs for manufactured goods such as clothes, ceramics, machine tools, and leather goods. Various factors – including the lack of basic infrastructure, the dearth of private and public investment, and the lack of any consistent public policy aimed at promoting industrial development – contributed to the insignificance of manufacturing.
Advanced manufacturing is the use of innovative technology to improve products or processes, with the relevant technology being described as "advanced," "innovative," or "cutting edge." Advanced manufacturing industries "increasingly integrate new innovative technologies in both products and processes. The rate of technology adoption and the ability to use that technology to remain competitive and add value to define the advanced manufacturing sector."
The National Occupational Research Agenda (NORA) is a partnership program developed by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). The program was founded in 1996 to provide a framework for research collaborations among universities, large and small businesses, professional societies, government agencies, and worker organizations. Together these parties identify issues in the field of workplace safety and health that require immediate attention based on the number of workers affected, the seriousness of the hazard, and the likelihood that new safety information and approaches can effect a change.
Industrial engineering is an engineering profession that is concerned with the optimization of complex processes, systems, or organizations by developing, improving and implementing integrated systems of people, money, knowledge, information and equipment.
The United Kingdom, where the Industrial Revolution began in the late 18th century, has a long history of manufacturing, which contributed to Britain's early economic growth. During the second half of the 20th century, there was a steady decline in the importance of manufacturing and the economy of the United Kingdom shifted toward services. Manufacturing, however, remains important for overseas trade and accounted for 44% of goods exports in 2014. In June 2010, manufacturing in the United Kingdom accounted for 8.2% of the workforce and 12% of the country's national output. The East Midlands and West Midlands were the regions with the highest proportion of employees in manufacturing. London had the lowest at 2.8%.
A circular economy is an economic system aimed at eliminating waste and the continual use of resources. Circular systems employ reuse, sharing, repair, refurbishment, remanufacturing and recycling to create a closed-loop system, minimising the use of resource inputs and the creation of waste, pollution and carbon emissions. The circular economy aims to keep products, equipment and infrastructure in use for longer, thus improving the productivity of these resources. Waste materials and energy should become input for other processes: either a component or recovered resource for another industrial process or as regenerative resources for nature. This regenerative approach is in contrast to the traditional linear economy, which has a "take, make, dispose" model of production.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to production:
Speciality chemicals are particular chemical products which provide a wide variety of effects on which many other industry sectors rely. Some of the categories of speciality chemicals are adhesives, agrichemicals, cleaning materials, colors, cosmetic additives, construction chemicals, elastomers, flavors, food additives, fragrances, industrial gases, lubricants, paints, polymers, surfactants, and textile auxiliaries. Other industrial sectors such as automotive, aerospace, food, cosmetics, agriculture, manufacturing, and textiles are highly dependent on such products.
Industrial and production engineering (IPE) is an interdisciplinary engineering discipline that includes manufacturing technology, engineering sciences, management science, and optimization of complex processes, systems, or organizations. It is concerned with the understanding and application of engineering procedures in manufacturing processes and production methods. Industrial engineering dates back all the way to the industrial revolution, initiated in 1700s by Sir Adam Smith, Henry Ford, Eli Whitney, Frank Gilbreth and Lilian Gilbreth, Henry Gantt, F.W. Taylor, etc. After the 1970s, industrial and production engineering developed worldwide and started to widely use automation and robotics. Industrial and production engineering includes three areas: Mechanical engineering, industrial engineering, and management science.
Industry of Croatia plays an important role in the country's economy. It has a longstanding tradition based since the 19th century on agriculture, forestry and mining. Many industrial branches developed at that time, like wood industry, food manufacturing, potash production, shipbuilding, leather and footwear production, textile industry, and others. Today, the industrial sectors in Croatia are food and beverage industry, metal processing and machine industry, including vehicles (20%), coke and refined petroleum production (17%), chemical, pharmaceutical, rubber and plastics industry (11%), wood, furniture and paper manufacturing (9%), electrical equipment, electronics and optics fabrication (9%), textile, clothing and footwear industry (5%) as well as construction and building materials production (5%).
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