History and development of modern manufacturing processes

Many people see manufacturing as something that has always been around and that has been an essential part of society for a very long time.But in the grand scheme of things, manufacturing is a fairly new technology compared to some other forms of business.Here is some more information about the history and development of modern manufacturing processes.

Manufacturing is loosely defined as the use of machine or tools and labor to make things for sale or trade.This definition would likely be considered the modern definition of manufacturing, because the whole idea of making something to sell was developed long before machines were invented.Manufacturing can be high tech or can be very low tech and even handcrafting.Manufacturing was carried out in the past only be skilled artisans and each work was very important and to the livelihood of the artist.This process was very laborious and took a long time to produce anything.Everything was considered to be custom made and each and every work was unique in some way.Apprenticeship was also strongly associated with manufacturing and was a very important part of forming new artisans and eventually developed into the guild system before the industrial revolution.

Manufacturing would be considered by most people to have become modern during the industrial revolution.The term is now more associated with mass production and modern processes on a large scale rather than a craftsman sitting in a shop making his craft.Manufacturing is a process that is done no matter what type of government or economic system is in place.Modern manufacturing now includes all of the intermediate processes that were normally done by other people or disregarded before as part of manufacturing.

Some historians have traced the history of manufacturing back to the year 0 claiming that was when mills were used to press fabric by foot.But, by today's terms, this still wouldn't really be considered manufacturing.It isn't mass producing anything and the end result isn't uniform in any way either.Others trace the history of manufacturing back to the time when moveable typeface and the printing press were first used in Europe by Johann Guttenberg.After this point, many inventors and innovators were constantly coming up with new ways to make the production of good more uniform and more consistent.They were also very concerned with making them easier and quicker to produce.But this evolution took many hundreds of years and the concept of streamlining processes didn't catch on to many other industries until the advent of the industrial revolution.

The 18th century was a very important time for the manufacturing industry and many people began to speak about the process of making goods and started calling it manufacturing.This is evidenced by a book written by Alexander Hamilton in 1791 called the Report on the Subject of Manufactures.Making things was thought of as a process rather than just an act and many people began working on ideas to improve manufacturing no matter what the product was.They wanted to improve the whole idea and process of production.

As time progressed, so did the ideas of things that could be mass produced and manufactured.In the modern age, many of the tasks associated with manufacturing are now performed by robots and assembly line workers.Even more thought is put into the whole process of manufacture than ever before.As more and more things are mass produced, there have been many people that are now shifting to the belief that handmade, rather than mass produced, machine made products are better quality and better for people than the ones just made by machines.The evolution of manufacturing certainly isn't over and will be changing constantly for many years to come.