Manufacturing process

“ Now in any operation of manufacturing raw material, or—what means the same thing—conveying raw material, say water or coal or fish, to the places where they are to be consumed, certain machines or appliances are necessary to enable the operation to take place well. ”

“ These are some of the steps by which the systems of the manufacturing world have been, in the past 150 years, transformed from household work, or that of the small shop, into that of the factory—and the factory developed into enormous establishments through the investment of great sums of money in the purchase and installation of ever-improving machinery, more ingenious, more productive, more costly, but turning out more and better of the finished product with each new device and new investment of capital. ”

“ Other notable branches of manufacturing industry, besides those already named, are flour-mills, jute, hosiery, lace, paper, cement, hats, haberdashery, machinery, tobacco, soap and candle factories, iron and steel works, distilleries, breweries, potteries, vinegar, chocolate, varnish, furniture, clothing and brick works. ”

“ Within the last thirty years a new method of conducting work, called Scientific Management, has been established in various businesses in the United States, including "machine shops and factories, steel work and paper mills, cotton mills and shoe shops, in bleacheries and dye works, in printing and bookbinding, in lithographing establishments, in the manufacture of type-writers and optical instruments, in constructing and engineering work—and to some extent—the manufacturing departments of the Army and Navy." ”

“ Every factory contains a carpenter’s and smith’s shop, and handicraftsmen of group (2) are required in every manufacturing concern. Whilst the industries in which hand labour is exclusively employed are becoming fewer and fewer, there are many trades which, owing to the frequent invention of labour-saving appliances, are passing gradually from the class of handicrafts to that of manufactures. ”

“ The Manufacturing Industry.—It is the function of the agriculturist and the herdsman, the miner and the lumberman, to produce the raw material. The sailor and the train-hand, the longshoreman and the teamster, transport them to the industrial centres. It is the business of [181] the manufacturer and his employees to turn them into the finished product for the use of society. ”

“ When, on the other hand, we turn to the manufacturing occupations, we find that they have followed an analogous, though not precisely similar, course of evolution. Certainly from the first the manufacturers showed themselves far ahead of their fellows in the economical management of the raw material, in the adoption of every kind of labor and time-saving device and in the disposal of refuse. ”

“ The materials processed by manufacturing establishments include products of agriculture, forestry, fishing, mining, and quarrying as well as products of other manufacturing establishments. The new product of a manufacturing establishment may be finished in the sense that it is ready for utilization or consumption, or it may be semifinished to become a raw material for an establishment engaged in further manufacturing. ”

“ These plants developed and enlarged, and in due course of time became the machine shops and the factories, which have since multiplied many hundreds of times, not only in number and in value, but in influence and importance, until to-day our country stands the foremost manufacturing nation of the world. ”

“ Finally, just as Manufacture arises in part from the combination of various handicrafts, so, too, it developes into a combination of various manufactures. The larger English glass manufacturers, for instance, make their own earthenware melting-pots, because, on the quality of these depends, to a great extent, the success or failure of the process. The manufacture of one of the means of production is here united with that of the product. ”

“ A study of the production in the United States of a few of the great articles which form the basis of manufactures and the manufacturing industries offers ready explanation of the great increase in the production of manufactures and the consequent marked increase in the exportation of manufactures. Six great articles supply the principal requisites for manufacturing, viz, iron, copper, wood, cotton, wool, and coal as the material which supplies the power by which they are first assembled and afterwards converted into manufactures. ”

“ It is now proper to proceed a step further, and to enumerate the principal circumstances from which it may be inferred that manufacturing establishments not only occasion a positive augmentation of the produce and revenue of the society, but that they contribute essentially to rendering them greater than they could possibly be, without such establishments. ”

“ The machinery required for operating the factory must be made and kept in repair, and new machines made to take the place of those worn out. So there came occupation for mechanics and skilled machinists in manufacturing and repairing the machines, and for others skilled in operating them. The material used in manufacturing the cloth must be transported to the factory, instead of being used at the place where it was grown as formerly ”

“ Manufacturing industry is little developed, but there are three flouring mills, a planing mill and furniture factory, carriage and wagon factories, cement works, founding and machine shops, a castor oil factory, cement pipe works, and a barrel factory, employing in the aggregate 144 men. ”

“ The manufacturing systems of the world have developed from mere hand and household industries to those of the machine and factory in less than two centuries. For thousands of years the simple requirements of men—of clothing, of domestic life, of agriculture and of transportation—were met with articles produced by hand labor, performed for the greatest part in the household or in simple workshops adjacent thereto. ”

“ Owing to the various kinds of skilled labor, numerous expensive tools, machinery, high rents for suitable manufacturing places necessary for the building of machinery, requiring the investment of large capital, and the devotion of a great deal of time for organization and supervision, many inventors find it convenient, even profitable, to have their machines built under contract by some established manufacturing concern which is properly equipped for that special kind of work. ”

“ It is clear to the intelligent observer that in these times of intensely keen competition, the manufacturer will, sooner or later, inevitably be driven to seek a considerable percentage of his profits in the utilization of by-products that now go to waste or bring but little return. The men to solve the manufacturing problems of the future will be chemical engineers. Broadly speaking, comparatively little has been done in this field in the United States, and its possibilities are incalculable. ”

“ A record of parts and finished stores is very essential in many manufacturing enterprises. The modern tendency in machinery manufacture, for instance, is to standardize production, making all parts interchangeable. ”

“ Another characteristic of modern manufacturing is exemplified in the study of the iron and steel industry and the relation of capital, labor and product, as is also the concentration of industries into great establishments and groups of establishments. As has already been noted, the value of the product of the iron and steel blast furnaces, steel works and rolling mills grew from 297 million in 1880 to 906 million in 1905, having thus a little more than trebled in that time. ”

“ All the machinery in our textile factories has cost at least fifty per cent if not seventy-five per cent more than that of our competitors in England, France, and Germany, on account of the tax upon materials of which that machinery is made. The life of machinery which is used in modern manufacturing ranges from ten to twenty years, averaging perhaps fifteen years. ”

“ Another, where a manufacture of a simpler kind, the competition of which, with a like domestic article, is desired to be restrained, partakes of the nature of a raw material from being capable, by a further process, to be converted into a manufacture of a different kind, the introduction or growth of which is desired to be encouraged. A third, where the material itself is a production of the country and in sufficient abundance to furnish a cheap and plentiful supply to the national manufacturers. ”

“ On the contrary, large quantities of manufactures are still produced by hand in various parts of the world other than those in which manufactures by modern machine methods are a leading characteristic of the occupations of the people. Nor must it be assumed that the areas designated as the non-manufacturing sections are entirely dependent upon the manufacturing sections for their manufactures. ”

“ Development of household manufactures.—Only in a few lines of manufacture had the organization developed beyond the simple lines sketched above. The making of cloth is an operation requiring much time, considerable technical skill, and, for some processes, machinery such as few households would possess. By 1700 it had become customary to rely upon professionals for fulling, the process which compacts the fibers of the cloth, and fulling mills were widely distributed in 1800. ”

“ In some factories and shops, the work is of such nature that economy results if the work order and the time record follows the job through all of the operations. For example, hosiery and underwear go through the factory in dozen lots; in a shoe factory a lot of shoes is kept together until every operation is finished; in a harness factory, a bridle goes through all operations on one work order; in a machine shop, one or more rough castings may pass through several operations in the process of converting them into finished parts.
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Fig. ”

“ It is found in every country, that the situation of large manufacturing establishments is confined to particular districts. In the earlier history of a manufacturing community, before cheap modes of transport have been extensively introduced, it will almost always be found that manufactories are placed near those spots in which nature has produced the raw material: especially in the case of articles of great weight, and in those the value of which depends more upon the material than upon the labour expended on it. ”

“ All these acting in conjunction with the material force—invention—have operated on manufacturing industries to produce the factory system of to-day. It is, indeed, because the factory system is the resultant of so many forces working in the past that it touches in the present nearly every great economic, social, political, moral, and philanthropic question. ”

“ What it is to our purpose to observe is that mechanical processes may be relieved of some of their present irksomeness by supplying them with their appropriate background. First of all, it is necessary that the worker should be acquainted with the whole process of manufacture in order that he may participate in his own special task with a measure of intelligent interest; and this will involve a degree of familiarity with the technical problems of management, with accounting and costing, with the internal conditions of the industry and the plant, and with the larger economics of the enterprise. ”

“ The change, at first view, is not striking, for the manufacturing was still done by petty artisans working at home with their own tools. The ownership of the raw material, however, had passed from the artisans to an employer, who took the risk of the manufacture and reaped profits corresponding to his success in conducting it.
Brain power now took a place in manufactures above hand power. The new class of employers were men who could devote their energy entirely to studying the larger questions212 of production. ”

“ Each important manufacturing industry has a number of industries which in their relation to it are secondary, although in some cases, having similar relations to a number of other trades, they may in themselves be large and important. In the large textile centres are found a number of minor industries, planers, sawyers, turners, fitters, smiths, engaged in irregular work of alteration and repairs upon the plant and machinery of the textile factories. ”

“ English manufacturing industry in the first half of the eighteenth century furnishes a variety of different forms of business of widely different nature and complexity. The simplest form of manufacturing industry is that in which an industrial family owning the raw material and the requisite tools, and working with the power of their own bodies in their own homes, produce commodities for their own consumption. ”

“ Manufacturing The manufacturing division includes establishments engaged in the mechanical or chemical transformation of materials or substances into new products. These establishments are usually described as plants, factories, or mills and characteristically use power driven machines and materials handling equipment. Establishments engaged in assembling component parts of manufactured products are also considered manufacturing if the new product is neither a structure nor other fixed improvement. ”

“ The inducement to contrive machines for any process of manufacture increases with the demand for the article; and the introduction of machinery, on the other hand, tends to increase the quantity produced and to lead to the establishment of large factories. An illustration of these principles may be found in the history of the manufacture of patent net. ”

“ There are many manufactories, the chief being paper-mills, machine-shops, iron-foundries, pianoforte, saw-factories, cotton, woolen and flour-mills, shoe and shirt-factories and bicycle, electrical apparatus and wood-turning establishments. ”