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Chapter 2
Objectives
After studying this chapter, you will be able to:
Describe how manufacturing has evolved.
List the major components of a manufacturing system.
Identify manufacturing inputs.
Describe manufacturing processes.
Identify manufacturing outputs.
Look around you. Manufactured products are everywhere. The furniture,
lighting fixtures, windows, doors, floor coverings, books, and pencils were all
manufactured. Even the clothing you are wearing was manufactured. Outside,
there are power poles, streetlights, fences, and automobiles, all of which were
manufactured. Each product was carefully designed, produced, and marketed.
They are the desired outputs of manufacturing systems.
The Evolution of Manufacturing
Manufacturing is as old as human life itself. People have always made
things from materials found on earth. Early manufacturing was done for per-
sonal use. People made weapons, clothing, and cookware for survival and to
make life easier. The processes they used were the manufacturing technology of
their time. It represented activity in making and using products to extend
human ability. With these products, people could hunt better, stay warmer, and
cook food more easily.
Making products for personal use has been called usufacturing or “making
for use.” This earliest manufacturing activity used simple technologies. Crude
tools and natural materials were the foundation of this stage of development.
Societies based on this type of production were in their handicraft era or age.
Later in history, people started to make products for other people.
Individuals developed skills in using certain materials and tools. See Figure 2-1.
They would concentrate on making a special type of product. This is how some
people became carpenters, while others became shoemakers, or weavers, etc.
They would trade (barter) their products for things they needed. For instance,
a carpenter might trade a stool for a pair of shoes.
Manufacturing
Systems
usufacturing.
Making products
for personal use.
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