A factory worker in 1940s Fort Worth, Texas. The 1940s decade ran from 1940 to 1949 Events and trends The 1940s was a period between the radical 1930s and the conservative 1950s which also leads the period to be Fort Worth is the fifth-largest city in the state of Texas and the seventeenth-largest city in the United States. Texas ( is a state geographically located in the South Central United States and is also known as the Lone Star State.

A factory (previously manufactory) or manufacturing plant is an industrial building where workers manufacture goods or supervise machines processing one product into another. For other uses of this term see Industry (disambiguation An industry (from Latin industrius, "diligent industrious" In Architecture, Construction, Engineering and real estate development the word building may refer to one of the following Any man-made Manufacturing (from Latin manu factura, "making by hand" is the use of tools and labor to make things for use or sale A machine is any device that uses Energy to perform some activity Most modern factories have large warehouses or warehouse-like facilities that contain heavy equipment used for assembly line production. A warehouse is a commercial Building for Storage of Goods. Warehouses are used by Manufacturers Importers Exporters A broader definition of a tool is an entity used to interface between two or more domains that facilitates more effective action of one domain upon the other An assembly line is a Manufacturing process in which parts (usually Interchangeable parts) are added to a product in a sequential manner using optimally planned Archetypally, factories gather and concentrate resources — workers, capital and plant. An archetype ( pronounced: /ˈɑːkɪtaɪp/ (Brit or /ˈɑrkɪtaɪp/ (Amer In Economics, capital or capital Goods or real capital refers to items of extensive value Physical plant or mechanical plant (and where context is given often just plant) refers to the necessary Infrastructure used in support and maintenance

History of the factory

China

Many ^[1] believed that ancient China had been the first to create factories. In ancient China, imperial and private workshops, mills, and small manufactories had been employed since the Eastern Zhou Dynasty (771-221 BC), as noted in the historical text of the Zhou Li. Chinese civilization originated in various city-states along the Yellow River ( valley in the Neolithic era The Zhou Dynasty ( POJ: Chiu Tiau 1122 BC to 256 BC was preceded by the Shang Dynasty and followed by the Qin Dynasty in China. Events and trends 778 BC — Agamestor King of Athens, dies after a reign of 17 years and is succeeded by his son Aeschylus Events By place Carthage The Carthaginian general Hasdrubal is murdered by a Celtic assassin while campaigning to increase The Rites of Zhou ( also known as Zhouguan (Offices of Zhou is one of three ancient ritual texts listed among the classics of Confucianism. ^[2] During the medieval Song Dynasty (960-1279 AD), independent and government sponsored industries were developed to meet the needs of a growing population that had reached over 100 million. The Song Dynasty ( Wade-Giles: Sung Ch'ao was a ruling dynasty in China between 960&ndash1279 CE it succeeded the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Events By Place Europe Edgar the Peaceable is crowned King of England. For example, for the printing of paper money alone, the Song court established several government-run factories in the cities of Huizhou, Chengdu, Hangzhou, and Anqi. A banknote (often known as a bill, paper money or simply a note) is a kind of Negotiable instrument, a Promissory note made by a Administration The Prefecture-level city of Huizhou administers 5 county-level divisions, including 2 districts and 3 counties. ( located in southwest People's Republic of China, is the capital of Sichuan province and a Sub-provincial city. ( Postal map spelling: Hangchow) is a Sub-provincial city located in the Yangtze River Delta in the People's Republic of China, ^[3] The size of the workforce employed in these paper money factories were quite large, as it was recorded in 1175 AD that the factory at Hangzhou alone employed more than a thousand workers a day. ^[3] The Chinese iron industry was also expanded during the Song Dynasty, with a sixfold increase in per capita cast iron output between the years 806 and 1078 AD, meaning an overall weight of 127,000,000 kg (125,000 t) of cast iron product from state-run facilities was forged in the latter year alone. Iron (ˈаɪɚn is a Chemical element with the symbol Fe (ferrum and Atomic number 26 Cast iron usually refers to grey cast iron, but identifies a large group of Ferrous Alloys which solidify with a Eutectic. ^[4]

Western world

Although large mills and manufactories were established in ancient Rome, the Venice Arsenal provides one of the first examples of a factory in the modern sense of the word. Ancient Rome was a Civilization that grew out of a small agricultural community founded on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 10th century BC The Venetian Arsenal (Arsenale di Venezia is a Shipyard and naval depot that played a leading role in Venetian empire-building Founded in 1104 in Venice, Italy, several hundred years before the Industrial Revolution, it mass-produced ships on assembly lines using manufactured parts. Venice ( Italian: Venezia, Venetian: Venesia or Venexia) is a city in Northern Italy, the capital of the Italy (Italia officially the Italian Republic, (Repubblica Italiana is located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe, and on the two largest The Industrial Revolution was a period in the late 18th and early 19th centuries when major changes in agriculture manufacturing and transportation had a profound effect on the Mass production (also called flow production, repetitive flow production, series production, or serial production) is the production of An assembly line is a Manufacturing process in which parts (usually Interchangeable parts) are added to a product in a sequential manner using optimally planned The American system of Manufacturing involves semi-skilled labor using Machine tools and templates (or jigs ' to make standardized identical The Venice Arsenal apparently produced nearly one ship every day and, at its height, employed 16,000 people.

Many historians regard Matthew Boulton's Soho Manufactory (established in 1761 in Birmingham) as the first modern factory. Matthew Boulton ( September 3, 1728 &ndash 18 August 1809) was an English Manufacturer and Engineer. The Soho Manufactory ( not to be confused with the Soho Foundry, was an early Factory which pioneered Mass production on the Assembly line Year 1761 ( MDCCLXI) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Birmingham ( ˈbɜːmɪŋəm Ber -ming-um (Other claims might be made for John Lombe's silk mill in Derby (1721), or Richard Arkwright's Cromford Mill (1771)—purpose built to fit the equipment it held and taking the material through the various manufacturing processes. John Lombe was a Silk spinner in 18th century Derby, England. The Derby Industrial Museum is housed in a former Silk Mill (the start of the Derwent Valley Mills World Heritage Site in Derby England. Derby (pronounced "dar-bee" /dˈɑːbɪ/ is a city in the East Midlands of England. Year 1721 ( MDCCXXI) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Sir Richard Arkwright ( Old Style 23 December 1732 / New Style 3 January 1733 – 3 August Derwent Valley Mills is a World Heritage Site along the River Derwent in Derbyshire, England, designated in December 2001 Year 1771 ( MDCCLXXI) was a Common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a ) One historian, Jack Weatherford, contends that the first factory was in Potosí, for processing silver ingot slugs into coins, because there was so much silver being mined close by. Potosí is a city the capital of the department of Potosí in Bolivia. ^[5]. See City and Factory Life for more background concerning conditions of work.

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. See also Kingdom of Great Britain Great Britain (Breatainn Mhòr Prydain Fawr Breten Veur Graet Breetain is the larger of the two main islands The 18th century lasted from 1701 to 1800 in the Gregorian calendar, in accordance with the Anno Domini / Common Era numbering system A textile is a flexible material comprised of a network of natural or artificial Fibres often referred to as thread or Yarn. 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. In Business, administration consists of the performance or management of business operations and thus the making or implementing of major decisions The putting-out system was a means of subcontracting work It was also known as the workshop system.

Cotton mills used 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. A cotton mill is a Factory housing spinning and Weaving Machinery Cotton was a leading sector in the Industrial Revolution, as cotton A steam engine is a Heat engine that performs Mechanical work using Steam as its Working fluid. The first power loom, a mechanized Loom powered by a Drive shaft, was designed in 1784 by Edmund Cartwright and first built in 1785 later to be perfected The 19th century of the Common Era began on January 1, 1801 and ended on December 31, 1900, according to the Gregorian calendar A machine tool is a powered mechanical device typically used to fabricate metal components of machines by Machining, which is the selective removal of metal Material efficiency is a description or metric which expresses the degree to which a construction project or physical process is carried out in a manner which consumes incorporates

Between 1820 and 1850, the non-mechanized factories supplanted the traditional artisanal shops as the predominant form of manufacturing institution. Even though the theory on why and how the non-mechanized factories gradually replaced the small artisan shops is still ambiguous, what is apparent is that the larger-scale factories enjoyed technological gains and advance in efficiency over the small artisan shops. In fact, the larger scale forms of factory establishments were more favorable and advantageous over the small artisan shops in terms of competition for survival.

Henry Ford further revolutionized the factory concept in the early 20th century, with the innovation of mass production. Henry Ford ( July 30, 1863 &ndash April 7, 1947) was the American founder of the Ford Motor Company and father of The twentieth century of the Common Era began on Mass production (also called flow production, repetitive flow production, series production, or serial production) is the production of 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. Consumerism is the equation of personal Happiness with the purchase of material possessions and consumption.

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

1. Advanced statistical methods of quality control, pioneered by the American mathematician William Edwards Deming, whom his home country initially ignored. Statistics is a mathematical science pertaining to the collection analysis interpretation or explanation and presentation of Data. In Engineering and Manufacturing, quality control and quality engineering are involved in developing systems to ensure products or services William Edwards Deming ( October 14, 1900 – December 20, 1993) was an American Statistician, Professor, Quality control turned Japanese factories into world leaders in cost-effectiveness and production quality. Cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA is a form of Economic analysis that compares the relative expenditure (costs and outcomes (effects of two or more courses of action
2. Industrial robots on the factory floor, introduced in the late 1970s. A robot is a mechanical or Virtual Artificial agent In practice it is usually an electro-mechanical system which by its appearance or movements This article is about the Decade 1970-1979 For the Year 1970 see 1970. 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. Rapid (or throwaway Software prototyping also describes a practice in the Software development process or application development process and sometimes refers Nanotechnology, sometimes shortened to nanotech, refers to a field of Applied science whose theme is the control of matter on an Atomic and Molecular In Physics, an orbit is the gravitationally curved path of one object around a point or another body for example the gravitational orbit of a planet around a star Gravitation is a natural Phenomenon by which objects with Mass attract one another

Siting the factory

Before the advent of mass transportation, factories' needs for ever-greater concentrations of workers meant that they typically grew up in an urban setting or fostered their own urbanization. Urbanizationn (also spelled urbanisation) is the physical growth of Urban areas into rural or natural land as a result of population in-migration to an existing Industrial slums developed, and reinforced their own development through the interactions between factories, as when one factory's output or waste-product became the raw materials of another factory (preferably nearby). A slum, as defined by the United Nations agency UN-HABITAT, is a run-down area of a city characterized by substandard housing and squalor and lacking in tenure security Interaction is a kind of action that occurs as two or more objects have an Effect upon one another Canals and railways grew as factories spread, each clustering around sources of cheap energy, available materials and/or mass markets. Canals are artificial channels for water There are two types of canals water conveyance canals which are used for the conveyance and delivery of water and Waterways "Railroad" and "Railway" both redirect here For other uses see Railroad (disambiguation. The exception proved the rule: even Greenfield's factory sites such as Bournville, founded in a rural setting, developed its own housing and profited from convenient communications networks. Bournville is a Model village on the south side of Birmingham, England, best known for its connections with the Cadbury family and Chocolate

Regulation curbed some of the worst excesses of industrialization's factory-based society, a series of Factory Acts leading the way in Britain. This article is for the legal term For regulation of genes see Regulation of gene expression. is a process of social and economic change whereby a human group is transformed from a Pre-industrial society into an industrial one The Factory Acts were a series of Acts passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom to limit the number of hours worked by women and children first in the textile Trams, automobiles and town planning encouraged the separate development ('apartheid') of industrial suburbs and residential suburbs, with workers commuting between them. A tram, tramcar, trolley, trolley car, or streetcar is a railborne vehicle, of lighter weight and construction than a Train

Though factories dominated the Industrial Era, the growth in the service sector eventually began to dethrone them: the locus of work in general shifted to central-city office towers or to semi-rural campus-style establishments, and many factories stood deserted in local rust belts. The Rust Belt, sometimes called the Manufacturing Belt, is an area in parts of the Northeastern United States, Mid-Atlantic States, and portions of the

The next blow to the traditional factories came from globalization. Globalization (or globalisation) in its literal sense is the process of transformation of local or regional phenomena into global ones Manufacturing processes (or their logical successors, assembly plants) in the late 20th century re-focussed in many instances on Special Economic Zones in developing countries or on maquiladoras just across the national boundaries of industrialized states. An assembly line is a Manufacturing process in which parts (usually Interchangeable parts) are added to a product in a sequential manner using optimally planned A Special Economic Zone ( SEZ) is a geographical region that has economic laws that are more liberal than a country's typical economic laws A maquiladora or maquila is a Factory that imports materials and equipment on a Duty-free and tariff-free basis for assembly or manufacturing Further re-location to the least industrialized nations appears possible as the benefits of out-sourcing and the lessons of flexible location apply in the future. Outsourcing is Subcontracting a process such as product design or Manufacturing, to a Third-party company

Governing the factory

Much of management theory developed in response to the need to control factory processes. Management (covering theory practice and scope of management and Manager' (covering the people who manage might help clarify and systematise Assumptions on the hierarchies of unskilled, semi-skilled and skilled workers and their supervisors and managers still linger on; however an example of a more contemporary approach to work design applicable to manufacturing facilities can be found in Socio-Technical Systems (STS). In Organizational development, socio-technical systems (or STS is an approach to complex organizational Work design that recognizes the interaction between

See Further Articles

Carroll, S & Gillen, D (1987) 'Are the classical management functions useful in describing managerial work?' Academy of Management Review. v 12 n 1, p38-51

Peterson, T (2004) 'Ongoing legacy of R. L. Katz: an updated typology of management skills', Management Decision. v 42 n10, p1297-1308

Mintzberg, H (1975) 'The manager's job: Folklore and fact' , Harvard Business Review, v 53 n 4, July - August, p49-61

Hales, C (1999) 'Why do managers do what they do? Reconciling evidence and theory in accounts of managerial work', British Journal of Management, v 10 n4, p335-350

Mintzberg, H (1994) 'Rounding out the Managers job', Sloan Management Review, v 36 n 1 p 11-26

Rodrigues, C (2001) 'Fayol’s 14 principles then and now: A framework for managing today’s organizations effectively', Management Decision, v 39 n10, p 880-889

Twomey, D. F. (2006) 'Designed emergence as a path to enterprise', Emergence, Complexity & Organization, Vol. 8 Issue 3, p12-23.

McDonald, G (2000) Business ethics: practical proposals for organisations Journal of Business Ethics. v 25(2) p 169-185

See also

• List of production topics/ideas
• Manufacturing
• Recovered factory
• Industrial railway
• Software factory
• Industrial Revolution
• Factory farm

Notes

References

• Needham, Joseph (1986). Science and Civilization in China: Volume 5, Part 1. Taipei: Caves Books, Ltd.

External links

• Qualitionary - Legal Definitions - Factory
• Qualitionary - Legal Definitions - Plant