Manufacturing
is the transformation of raw materials into finished
goods for sale, by means of tools and a processing
medium, and including all intermediate processes involving
the production or finishing of component parts ("semi-manufactures").
It is a large branch of industry and of secondary
production. Some industries, like semiconductor and
steel manufacturers use the term "fabrication".
Although handicraft production has been with us 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.
While it remains a huge part of the modern world economy—perhaps
a quarter of aggregate world production of goods and
services—many of the world's wealthier nations devote
an ever smaller proportion of their workforce to manufacturing
activity owing to relocation of enterprises to lower-wage
countries and the rising proportion of economic activity
devoted to service activity. |
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