View of the Entrance to the Arsenal by
Canaletto, 1732.
A
factory (previously
manufactory) or
manufacturing plant is an
industrial building where workers
manufacture goods or supervise
machines
processing one product into another. Most modern factories have large warehouses or
warehouse-like facilities that contain heavy
equipment used for
assembly line production. Typically, factories gather and concentrate resources:
workers,
capital and
plant.
History
Although large mills and workshops were established in ancient China,
ancient Rome and the Middle East, the
Venice Arsenal provides one of the first examples of a factory in the modern sense of the word. Founded in 1104 in
Venice,
Republic of Venice, several hundred years before the
Industrial Revolution, it
mass-produced ships on
assembly lines using
manufactured parts. 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. (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.) 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. . See 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. 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.
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.
Between 1820 and 1850, the non-mechanized factories supplanted the traditional artisan 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. 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.
In the mid- to late 20th century, industrialized countries introduced next-generation factories with two improvements:
- Industrial robots on the factory floor, introduced in the late 1970s. 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.
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. 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).
Canals and
railways grew as factories spread, each clustering around sources of cheap energy, available materials and/or mass markets. The exception proved the rule: even
greenfield factory sites such as
Bournville, founded in a rural setting, developed its own housing and profited from convenient communications networks.
Regulation curbed some of the worst excesses of
industrialization's factory-based society, a series of
Factory Acts leading the way in Britain.
Trams, automobiles and
town planning encouraged the separate development of industrial suburbs and residential suburbs, with workers commuting between them.
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 next blow to the traditional factories came from
globalization. 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. 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.
New England Factories in the 19th Century
In New England in the early to mid-19th century, many
cotton and
textile factories employed large numbers of female
adolescent workers from the
New England area. The girls came from families of middling farmers. Most viewed
mill factory work as a way to branch out from their
rural lives, and labored, not only to send money back home, but to gain greater social & economic
independence. They were able to earn enough through factory work to cover their living expenses and still have spending money and savings for dowries.
In 1834 New England textile factory owners decided to cut the wages of these young women in order to save money. In response, the young factory workers organized
turnouts (strikes) in an attempt to force their employers to raise wages again. These young women viewed themselves as equals to their managers. They saw their wage reductions as attempts to take away their economic independence and force them to become completely dependent upon factory employment for survival – to make them “
slaves” to their employers. Because of bad timing and poor
organization their 1834 factory turnout was unsuccessful, but it did lay the foundation for successful strikes that helped shape factory life in the future.
Governing the factory
Much of
management theory developed in response to the need to control factory processes. 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).
Shadow factories
A
shadow factory is a term given to dispersed manufacturing sites in times of war to reduce the risk of disruption due to enemy
air-raids and often with the dual purpose of increasing manufacturing capacity.
Production of the
Supermarine Spitfire at its parent company's base at
Woolstone was vulnerable to enemy attack as a high profile target and was well within range of
Luftwaffe bombers. Indeed on 26 September 1940 this facility was completely destroyed by an enemy bombing raid.
Supermarine had already established a plant at
Castle Bromwich, this action prompted them to further disperse Spitfire production around the country with many premises being requisitioned by the British Government.
Connected to the Spitfire was production of its equally important
Rolls-Royce Merlin engine,
Rolls-Royce's main
aero engine facility was located at
Derby, the need for increased output was met by building new factories in
Crewe and
Glasgow and using the existing factory of
Ford of Britain in
Manchester.
See also
