thumb|Doughnut production line
A
production line is a set of sequential operations established in a
factory whereby materials are put through a
refining process to produce an end-product that is suitable for onward consumption; or components are assembled to make a finished article.
Typically, raw materials such as
metal ores or
agricultural products such as foodstuffs or
textile source plants (
cotton,
flax) require a sequence of treatments to render them useful. For metal, the processes include crushing,
smelting and further refining. For plants, the useful material has to be separated from husks or contaminants and then treated for onward sale.
History
Early
production processes were constrained by the availability of a source of
energy, with
wind mills and
water mills providing
power for the crude heavy processes and
manpower being used for activities requiring more precision. In earlier centuries, with raw . The concentration of numbers of people in manufactories, and later the
factory as exemplified by the
cotton mills of
Richard Arkwright, started the move towards co-locating individual processes.
Introduction of the steam engine
With the development of the
steam engine in the latter half of the 18th century, the production elements became less reliant on the location of the power source, and so the processing of goods moved to either the source of the materials or the location of people to perform the tasks. Separate processes for different treatment stages were brought into the same building, and the various stages of refining or manufacture were combined.
Industrial revolution
With increasing use of steam power, and increasing use of
machinery to supplant the use of people, the integrated use of techniques in production lines spurred the
industrial revolutions of
Europe and the
United States.
United States
It wasn't until the implementation and mass production techniques that the US was able to pass the output/capita of the rest of the world. Much of this growth can be similarly attributed to taking advantage of numerous natural resources and raw materials through legislation and laws. And therefore in 1910, the US growth surpassed that of Britain. (Industrial output/worker)
Assembly line
Thus, from the processing of raw materials into useful goods, the next step was the concept of the
assembly line, as introduced by
Eli Whitney. This was taken to the next stage at the
Ford Motor Company in 1913, where
Henry Ford introduced the innovation of continuously moving the cars being assembled past individual work stations. This introduced the idea of standardisation.
See also
