Manufacturing Article

Manufacturing (from Latin manu factura, "making by hand") is the use of tools and labor to make things for use or sale. 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. Manufacturing takes place under all types of economic systems. In a free market economy, manufacturing is usually directed toward the mass production of products for sale to consumers at a profit. In a collectivist economy, manufacturing is more frequently directed by the state to supply a centrally planned economy. In free market economies, manufacturing occurs under some degree of government regulation. Modern manufacturing 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 manufacturing sector is closely connected with engineering and industrial design. Examples of major manufacturers in the United States include General Motors Corporation, Ford Motor Company, Chrysler, Boeing, Gates Rubber Company and Pfizer. Examples in Europe include France's Airbus and Michelin Tire. Latin (lingua Latīna, pronounced [laˈtiːna]) is an ancient Indo-European language that was spoken in Ancient Rome. It was also the de facto international language of science and scholarship in mid and western Europe until the 17th century. Through Roman conquest, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe. It later evolved into the languages spoken in France, Italy, Romania, and the Iberian peninsula, and through them to the Americas and Africa. There are two distinctions of Latin: Classical Latin, the form used in poetry and formal prose, and Vulgar Latin, the name given to a common set of Latin based dialects, until they diverged into the various Romance languages. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the rise of the Catholic Church, Latin became the ecclesiastical language of the Catholic Church and the lingua franca of educated classes in the West. After 2,300 years, Latin began a slow decline around the 16th century. Vulgar Latin, however, was preserved in several regional dialects, which by the 800s had become the ancestors of today's Romance languages. Latin lives on in the form of Ecclesiastical Latin spoken in the Catholic Church. Some Latin vocabulary is still used in science, academia, and law. Classical Latin, the literary language of the late Republic and early Empire, is still taught in many primary, grammar, and secondary schools, often combined with Greek in the study of Classics, though its role has diminished since the early 20th century. The Latin alphabet, together with its modern variants such as the English, Spanish and French alphabets, is the most widely used alphabet in the world. Handicraft, also known as craftwork or simply craft, is a type of work where useful and decorative devices are made completely by hand or using only simple tools. Usually the term is applied to traditional means of making goods. The individual artisanship of the items is a paramount criterion, such items often have cultural and/or religious significance. Items made by mass production or machines are not handicrafts. Usually, what distinguishes the term handicraft from the frequently used category arts and crafts is a matter of intent: handicraft items are intended to be used, worn, et cetera, having a purpose beyond simple decoration. Handicrafts are generally considered more traditional work, created as a necessary part of daily life, while arts and crafts implies more of a hobby pursuit and a demonstration/perfection of a creative technique. In practical terms, the categories have a great deal of overlap. High tech is technology that is at the cutting edge—the most advanced technology currently available. The adjective form is hyphenated: high-tech or high-technology. (There is also an architectural style known as high tech). There is no specific class of technology that is high tech—the definition shifts over time—so products hyped as high tech in the 1960s would now be considered, if not exactly low tech, then at least somewhat primitive. This fuzzy definition has led to marketing departments describing nearly all new products as high tech. A raw material is something that is acted upon by human labour or industry for use as a building material to create some product that humans desire. Often the term is used to denote material that came from nature and is still in an unprocessed or minimally processed state. Iron ore, logs, and crude oil, would be examples. In Marxist economics and some industries, the term is used in a distinct sense: raw material is a 'subject of labor', something that will be worked on by labor that has already undergone some alteration by labour. In other words it does not apply to materials in their entirely unprocessed state. Some examples are dimensional lumber, glass and steel. Finished is

Highly accomplished or skilled; polished: a finished artist. Exhibiting a high degree of skill or polish: an essay that was a finished piece of work. Doomed to death or destruction. Having no more use, value, or potential; washed-up. A good or commodity in economics is any object or service that increases utility, directly or indirectly, not to be confused with good in a moral or ethical sense (see Utilitarianism and consequentialist ethical theory). A good that cannot be used by consumers directly, such as an "office building" or "capital equipment", can also be referred to as a good as an indirect source of utility through resale value or as a source of income. A 'good' in economic usage has taken a divergence from root meanings associated with social moralities and legalities, but still retains the positive outlook of the word. For example, if an object or service is sold for a positive price, then it is a "good" since the purchaser considers the utility of the object or service more valuable than the money. '. In macroeconomics and accounting, a good is contrasted with a service. A good here is defined as a physical (tangible) product capable of being delivered to a purchaser and involves the transfer of ownership from seller to customer, say an apple, as opposed to an (intangible) service, say a haircut. A more general term that preserves the distinction between goods and services is 'commodities'. In microeconomics a 'good' is often used in this more inclusive sense of the word. An economic system is a particular set of social institutions which deals with the production, distribution and consumption of goods and services in a particular society. The economic system is composed of people and institutions, including their relationships to productive resources, such as through the convention of property. In a given economy, it is the systemic means by which problems of economics are addressed, such as the economic problem of scarcity through allocation of finite productive resources. Examples of contemporary economic systems include capitalist systems, socialist systems, and mixed economies. Economic systems is the economics category that includes the study of respective systems. In marketing, a product is anything that can be offered to a market that might satisfy a want or need.^[1] In retailing, products are called merchandise. In manufacturing, products are purchased as raw materials and sold as finished goods. Commodities are usually raw materials such as metals and agricultural products, but a commodity can also be anything widely available in the open market. The verb produce (prə doos' or -dyoos') is from the Latin prōdūce(re), (to) lead or bring forth. The noun product (prod'əkt or-ukt) is "a thing produced by labor or effort".^[2] Since 1575, the word "product" has referred to anything produced.^[3] Since 1695, the word has referred to "thing or things produced". The economic or commercial meaning of product was first used by political economist Adam Smith.^[4]In general usage, product may refer to a single item or unit, a group of equivalent products, a grouping of goods or services, or an industrial classification for the goods or services. Consumers refers to individuals or households that use goods and services generated within the economy. The concept of a consumer is used in different contexts, so that the usage and significance of the term may vary. Regulation can be considered as legal restrictions promulgated by government authority. One can consider at least two levels in democracies -- legislative acts, and implementing specifications of conduct imposed sanction (as a fine). This administrative law or implementing regulatory law is in contrast to statutory or case law. Regulation mandated by a state attempts to produce outcomes which might not otherwise occur, produce or prevent outcomes in different places to what might otherwise occur, or produce or prevent outcomes in different timescales than would otherwise occur. Common examples of regulation include attempts to control market entries, prices, wages, pollution effects, employment for certain people in certain industries, standards of production for certain goods, the military forces and services. The economics of imposing or removing regulations relating to markets is analysed in regulatory economics. A semiconductor is a solid material that has electrical conductivity in between that of a conductor and that of an insulator; it can vary over that wide range either permanently or dynamically.^[1] Semiconductors are tremendously important in technology. Semiconductor devices, electronic components made of semiconductor materials, are essential in modern electrical devices. Examples range from computers to cellular phones to digital audio players. Silicon is used to create most semiconductors commercially, but dozens of other materials are used as well. Steel is an alloy consisting mostly of iron, with a carbon content between 0.2 and 2.04% by weight (C:1000–10,8.67Fe), depending on grade. Carbon is the most cost-effective alloying material for iron, but various other alloying elements are used such as manganese, chromium, vanadium, and tungsten.^[1] Carbon and other elements act as a hardening agent, preventing dislocations in the iron atom crystal lattice from sliding past one another. Varying the amount of alloying elements and form of their presence in the steel (solute elements, precipitated phase) controls qualities such as the hardness, ductility and tensile strength of the resulting steel. Steel with increased carbon content can be made harder and stronger than iron, but is also more brittle. The maximum solubility of carbon in iron (in austenite region) is 2.14% by weight, occurring at 1149 °C; higher concentrations of carbon or lower temperatures will produce cementite. Alloys with higher carbon content than this are known as cast iron because of their lower melting point and castability.^[1] Steel is also to be distinguished from wrought iron containing only a very small amount of other elements, but containing 1–3% by weight of slag in the form of particles elongated in one direction, giving the iron a characteristic grain. It is more rust-resistant than steel and welds more easily. It is common today to talk about 'the iron and steel industry' as if it were a single entity, but historically they were separate products. Though steel had been produced by various inefficient methods long before the Renaissance, its use became more common after more efficient production methods were devised in the 17th century. With the invention of the Bessemer process in the mid-19th century, steel became a relatively inexpensive mass-produced good. Further refinements in the process, such as basic oxygen steelmaking, further lowered the cost of production while increasing the quality of the metal. Today, steel is one of the most common materials in the world and is a major component in buildings, tools, automobiles, and appliances. Modern steel is generally identified by various grades of steel defined by various standards organizations. Fabrication, when used as an industrial term, applies to the building of machines, structures, or process equipment for the chemical or fertilizer sector, by cutting, shaping and assembling components made from raw materials. Small businesses that specialize in metal are called fab shops. Steel fabrication shops and machine shops have overlapping capabilities, but fabrication shops generally concentrate on the metal preparation, welding and assembly aspect while the machine shop is more concerned with the machining of parts. Engineering is the discipline and profession of applying scientific knowledge and utilizing natural laws and physical resources in order to design and implement materials, structures, machines, devices, systems, and processes that realize a desired objective and meet specified criteria. The American Engineers’ Council for Professional Development (ECPD, the predecessor of ABET^[1]) has defined engineering as follows:

One who practices engineering is called an engineer, and those licensed to do so may have more formal designations such as Professional Engineer, Chartered Engineer, or Incorporated Engineer. The broad discipline of engineering encompasses a range of more specialized subdisciplines, each with a more specific emphasis on certain fields of application and particular areas of technology. Main Entry:

of or relating to industry derived from human industry <industrial wealth> engaged in industry <the industrial classes> used in or developed for use in industry <industrial diamonds>; also : heavy-duty <an industrial zipper> characterized by highly developed industries <an industrial nation>.