Miscellaneous Definitions — accessories, trims, tools and general fashion terms from Apparel Search
Manufacturing is the transformation of raw materials into finished goods for sale, or intermediate processes involving the production or finishing of semi-manufactures. It is a large part of the economy in industrial societies, and in the apparel industry it names the whole conversion of fiber, fabric and trim into finished garments: cutting, sewing, pressing, finishing and packing, whether performed in a brand's own factory or by a contracted manufacturer working to the brand's specification.
Manufacturing is the transformation of raw materials into finished goods for sale, or intermediate processes involving the production or finishing of 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.
Manufacturing Topics of interest for further investigation:
Taxonomy of manufacturing processes
Manufacturing Systems
Craft system
English system of manufacturing
American System of manufacturing
Soviet collectivism in manufacturing
Mass production
Just in time manufacturing
Lean manufacturing
Flexible manufacturing
Mass customization
Agile manufacturing
Rapid manufacturing
Prefabrication
Theories
Taylorism
Fordism
Scientific management
Manufacturing Engineering
Industrial and manufacturing engineering
Manufacturing Systems Engineering
Computer-aided manufacturing
Computer integrated manufacturing
Numerically controlled
Computer numerically controlled
Distributed Control Systems
Fieldbus control systems
Programmable logic controllers
| The above article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (Manufacturing_definition_manufacturer.htm). Some of the links have been modified. 6/5/05 |
Every definition of manufacturing turns on change. Raw materials enter a process worth less than the finished goods that leave it, and the difference is the value manufacturing adds: materials are cut, formed, assembled, finished and inspected until they become something a buyer can use. The definition deliberately reaches beyond complete products. Intermediate processes count as manufacturing too — the production or finishing of semi-manufactures, goods that will become parts of something else. A mill weaving greige fabric, a dye house finishing that fabric, and a factory sewing it into shirts are all manufacturing, each transforming the output of the stage before. Industry is a chain of transformations, and the word applies at every link.
Scale and method sit underneath the plain definition. Manufacturing implies organized, repeatable production: materials are specified, steps are sequenced, quality is checked against a standard, and output is measured in quantities meant for sale rather than for the maker's own single use. That distinguishes manufacturing from craft in the narrow sense, although the boundary is practical rather than absolute — a small factory sewing two hundred shirts by hand-guided machines is manufacturing, because its process is organized for repeatable sale, while a single garment sewn at home is not, even if the sewing is identical stitch by stitch. In apparel the dominant factory system breaks garment making into operations — spreading, cutting, bundling, sewing operations on specialized machines, pressing, trimming, inspection and packing — each performed many times a day to specification.
The apparel trade separates roles that the single word manufacturer can blur. A brand or retailer may design and sell garments without owning a factory, contracting the manufacturing to independent firms; the contractor is then the manufacturer in fact, cutting and sewing to the client's patterns, markers and quality standards. Other firms are manufacturers in the full sense, developing their own lines and selling finished goods to retailers. Vertically organized companies do both, and offshore production simply moves the manufacturing link of the chain to wherever the combination of skill, capacity and cost fits the product. Terms such as CMT — cut, make and trim — price the manufacturing contribution separately from materials, which underlines the definition: what the manufacturer sells is the transformation itself.
For the economy, manufacturing is the sector that makes physical goods, distinct from agriculture and extraction, which gather raw materials, and from services, which sell work without a transformed product. The apparel industry's version of the word keeps the same shape at garment scale: fiber becomes yarn, yarn becomes fabric, fabric becomes a garment — each stage a transformation of materials into something more finished and more valuable, each stage manufacturing in the full sense of the term.
Manufacturing is the transformation of raw materials into finished goods for sale, or intermediate processes involving the production or finishing of semi-manufactures. It converts materials into products through labor, machinery and organized processes.
A manufacturer is the person or company that performs manufacturing — in apparel, the factory or firm that cuts and sews fabric into finished garments, either its own products or goods produced under contract for a brand or retailer.
A manufacturer may develop and sell its own products, while a sewing contractor produces garments to another firm's designs and specifications. Both perform manufacturing; the difference is who owns the design, the materials and the finished goods.