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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.
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
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 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.