Manufacturing is the production of merchandise for use or sale using labour 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 sold to other
manufacturers for the production of other, more complex products, such as aircraft,
household appliances, furniture, sports equipment or automobiles, or sold to
wholesalers, who in turn sell them to retailers, who then sell them to end users
and consumers.

Manufacturing engineering or 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 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, FCA
and Michelin. Examples in Asia include Toyota, Yamaha, Panasonic, Mitsubishi, LG,
Samsung and Tata Motors.

Contents
1 History and development
1.1 Manufacturing systems: changes in methods of manufacturing
2 Industrial policy
2.1 Economics of manufacturing
2.2 Manufacturing and investment
3 Countries by manufacturing output using the most recent known data
4 Manufacturing processes
5 Control
6 See also
7 References
8 Sources
9 External links
History and development

Finished regenerative thermal oxidizer at manufacturing plant

Assembly of Section 41 of a Boeing 787 Dreamliner

An industrial worker amidst heavy steel semi-products (KINEX BEARINGS, Bytca,

Slovakia, c. 1995�2000)

A modern automobile assembly line

In its earliest form, manufacturing was usually carried out by a single skilled
artisan 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.
Before the Industrial Revolution, 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.
Toll manufacturing is an arrangement whereby a first firm with specialized
equipment processes raw materials or semi-finished goods for a second firm.
Manufacturing systems: changes in methods of manufacturing
Manufacturing Engineering
Agile manufacturing
American system of manufacturing
British factory system of manufacturing
Craft or guild system
Fabrication
Flexible manufacturing
Just-in-time manufacturing
Lean manufacturing
Mass customization (2000s) � 3D printing, design-your-own web sites for sneakers,
fast fashion
Mass production
Ownership
Packaging and labeling
Prefabrication
Putting-out system
Rapid manufacturing
Reconfigurable manufacturing system
Soviet collectivism in manufacturing
History of numerical control
Industrial policy
Main article: Industrial policy
Economics of manufacturing
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 and investment

Capacity utilization in manufacturing in the FRG and in the USA

Surveys and analyses of trends and issues in manufacturing and investment around
the world focus on such things as:

The nature and sources of the considerable variations that occur cross-nationally
in levels of manufacturing and wider industrial-economic growth;
Competitiveness; and
Attractiveness to foreign direct investors.
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.[1][2]

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.[3] 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.[4] A total of 3.2 million � one in six U.S. manufacturing jobs � have
disappeared between 2000 and 2007.[5] 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

List of top 20 manufacturing countries by total value of manufacturing in US
dollars for its noted year according to Worldbank.[6][7]

Rank Country/Region Millions of $US Year

World 12,578,627 2014
1 China 3,713,300 2014
European Union 2,566,070 2014
2 United States 2,068,080 2014
Logo European Central Bank.svg Eurozone 1,946,857 2014
3 Japan 850,902 2014
4 Germany 787,503 2014
5 South Korea 389,582 2014
6 India 321,721 2014
7 Italy 296,611 2014
8 France 283,664 2014
9 United Kingdom 282,675 2014
10 Russia 248,481 2014
11 Brazil 218,799 2014
12 Mexico 216,773 2014
13 Indonesia 186,744 2014
14 Spain 166,594 2014
15 Canada 162,074 2014
16 Switzerland 128,881 2014
17 Turkey 126,365 2014
18 Thailand 112,214 2014
19 Netherlands 95,683 2014
20 Australia 93,461 2016
Manufacturing processes
List of manufacturing processes
Manufacturing Process Management
Control
Management
List of management topics
Total quality management
Quality control
Six Sigma
See also
Main article: Outline of manufacturing
List of largest manufacturing companies by revenue
Industrial robot
Manufacturing engineering
Manufacturing in the United States
Industrial engineering
Advanced manufacturing
Metal fabrication
Microfabrication
Optics fabrication
Semiconductor device fabrication
Biomanufacturing
Mesoscale Manufacturing
Cyber manufacturing
Taylorism/Scientific management
Fordism
Manufacturing Program of the US National Institute for Occupational Safety and
Health