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Vol 26 - No 01 - February 2000 Manufacturing, past, present and future. Part 1: The Past Manufacturing has a long history. In fact one could argue that manufacturing is as old as civilisation itself since an artisan with energy and skill would make an article for someone who had neither (or was lazy) but had money... Our earliest records show trade in manufactured goods ranging from weapons and farming implements to cloth and jewellery. Simple factories have been found at many developed prehistoric sites. Manufacturing has always been about money and many emerging nations have seen manufacturing as the logical route to economic and social development. As always, manufacturing starts with identification of the customer need which provides the business opportunity. Then the application of specialist knowledge, skills and technology are employed to provide artifacts to fulfil that need. This must be done more effectively by the manufacturer than the customer or the competition if the business is to be retained. The effective and timely execution of the design/manufacturing cycle was, and remains, the key issue for manufacturing. Page number: Page: 14 Word count: Words: approx. 1200 Related Topics: Manufacturing control
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