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MANUFACTURING
Manufacturing, a branch of industry which accounts for about one-quarter of the world's economic activity, is the application of tools and a processing medium to the transformation of raw materials into finished goods for sale. Manufacturing is a wealth producing sector of an economy, whereas a service sector tends to be wealth consuming. This effort includes all intermediate processes required for the production and integration of a product's components. Some industries, such as semiconductor and steel manufacturers use the term fabrication instead.
The geographical concentration of the manufacturing industry is changing. The industrial capacity of many of the western nations is being negatively impacted by an imbalance in currency exchange rates, accompanied by wage errosion and a corresponding loss of engineering job opportunities in western nations, due to relocation and outsourcing of enterprise to more exploitive and lower-wage countires of the world which have fewer labor protections and lower environmental standards.
Context
History and development
Although handicraft production has existed for many millennia, modern-style manufacturing is generally regarded as beginning around 1780 with the British Industrial Revolution, spreading thereafter to Continental Europe and North America, and subsequently around the world. Originally, the term applied to commodities or artifacts which were "made by hand".
Taxonomy of manufacturing processes
Taxonomy of manufacturing processes (separate page)
Manufacturing systems
Theories
Control
Manufacturing engineering
Assembly systems
Design
Others
Lists of related topics
External links
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