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Manufacturing is the
production of merchandise for use or sale using labor and machines, tools, chemical and
biological processing, or formulation. The term may refer to a range of human
activity, from handicraft to high tech, but is most commonly applied to industrial
production, in which raw materials are transformed into finished
goods on a large scale. Such finished goods may be used for manufacturing
other, more complex products, such as aircraft, household
appliances or automobiles, or sold to wholesalers,
who in turn sell them to retailers, who then sell them to end users – the "consumers".
Manufacturing takes turns under all
types of economic systems. In a free market economy,
manufacturing is usually directed toward the mass
production of products for sale to consumers at a
profit. In a collectivist economy, manufacturing is more frequently
directed by the state to supply a centrally planned
economy. In mixed market economies, manufacturing occurs under some degree
of government regulation.
Modern manufacturing includes all
intermediate processes required for 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 engineering and industrial
design. Examples of major manufacturers in North
America include General Motors Corporation, General
Electric, Procter & Gamble, General
Dynamics, Boeing,
Pfizer, and Precision Castparts. Examples in Europe include
Volkswagen
Group, Siemens,
and Michelin.
Examples in Asia include Toyota, Samsung, and Bridgestone.
History and development
Assembly of Section 41 of a Boeing 787 Dreamliner
Manufacturing systems: changes
in methods of manufacturing
Industrial policy
Economics of manufacturing
According to some economists,
manufacturing is a wealth-producing sector of an economy, whereas a service
sector tends to be wealth-consuming. 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 increased use of technologies such as 3D printing
also offer the potential to reduce the environmental impact of producing
finished goods through distributed manufacturing.
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 on-going 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 and investment
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.
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. 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. A total of 3.2 million – one in six
U.S. manufacturing jobs – have disappeared between 2000 and 2007. 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.
Countries by manufacturing
output using the most recent known data
Data is provided by Worldbank. It
shows the total value of manufacturing in US dollars for its noted year.
Manufacturing processes
Theories
Control
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Tuesday 16 September 2014
Manufacturing / REF / 693 / 2014
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