Factory

A factory (previously manufactory) or manufacturing plant is a large industrial building where workers manufacture goods or products. Most modern factories have large warehouse-like facilities that contain heavy equipment used for assembly line production. Archetypally, factories gather and concentrate resources -- workers, capital and plant.

History of the factory

The Venice Arsenal provides the first example of a factory in the modern sense of the word. Founded in 1104 in Venice, Italy, several hundred years before the Industrial Revolution, it mass-produced ships on assembly lines using manufactured parts. The Venice Arsenal apparently produced nearly one ship every day and, at its height, employed 16,000 people.

Related Topics:
Venice Arsenal - 1104 - Venice - Italy - Industrial Revolution - Mass-produced - Assembly line - Manufactured parts

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Apart from that, many historians regard Matthew Boulton's Soho Manufactory (established in 1761 in Birmingham) as the first modern factory.

Related Topics:
Matthew Boulton - Soho Manufactory - 1761 - Birmingham

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British colonies in the late 18th century built factories simply as buildings where a large number of workers gathered to perform hand labor, usually in textile production. This proved more efficient – for administration and for the distribution of raw materials to individual workers – than earlier methods of manufacturing such as cottage industries or the putting-out system.

Related Topics:
British - 18th century - Textile - Administration - Distribution - Raw material - Cottage industries

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Cotton mills utilised inventions such as the steam engine and the power loom to pioneer the industrial factory of the 19th century, where precision machine tools and replaceable parts allowed greater efficiency and less waste.

Related Topics:
Cotton mill - Steam engine - Power loom - 19th century - Machine tool - Efficiency

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Henry Ford further revolutionized the factory concept in the early 20th century, with the innovation of mass production. Highly specialized workers situated alongside a series of rolling ramps would build up a product such as (in Ford's case) an automobile. This concept dramatically decreased production costs for virtually all manufactured goods and brought about the age of consumerism.

Related Topics:
Henry Ford - 20th century - Mass production - Automobile - Consumerism

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In the mid- to late 20th century, industrialized countries introduced next-generation factories with two improvements:

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• Advanced statistical methods of quality control, pioneered by the American mathematician William Edwards Deming, whom his home country initially ignored. Quality control turned Japanese factories into world leaders in cost-effectiveness and production quality.
• Industrial robots on the factory floor, introduced in the late 1970s. These computer-controlled welding arms and grippers could perform simple tasks such as attaching a car door quickly and flawlessly 24 hours a day. This too cut costs and improved speed.

Some speculation as to the future of the factory includes scenarios with rapid prototyping, nanotechnology, and orbital zero-gravity facilities.

Related Topics:
Rapid prototyping - Nanotechnology - Orbit - Gravity

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