Facts for Kids

Manufacturing means making things on a large scale using machines, tools, workers, and sometimes chemicals or living materials. It is part of the secondary sector of the economy, which takes raw stuff from farms, mines, or forests and turns it into finished goods you can buy. Finished goods might be parts for other factories or toys, clothes, and food that stores sell to people like you.

People who plan how things are made work in manufacturing engineering. They design the steps that move a product from an idea to a real object. Some industries call their work fabrication, such as making steel or tiny computer chips. Manufacturing often works closely with engineers and industrial designers who shape how products look and work.

People have made useful objects for a very long time. Early humans and their ancestors made simple stone tools more than two million years ago. Over time, toolmakers learned new methods, like striking a stone to make sharp edges, preparing a single rock to produce many blades, and using gentle pressure to shape finer tools. In the Neolithic age, people polished stones and used wood and bone tools too.

Later, people discovered metalworking and created bronze by mixing copper and tin, then learned iron and steel. Civilizations like Mesopotamia and Egypt invented the wheel, the potter’s wheel, and ways to mass-produce items such as pottery and paper. The biggest changes came during the Industrial Revolution in the mid-1700s when factories, steam, and machines replaced many hand tools. A second wave after 1870 brought steel, electricity, and assembly lines that let factories make many more things faster.

When a factory finishes a product it may sell it to another factory or send it along a chain: first to a wholesaler, then to a retailer, and finally to you. Wholesalers buy large amounts and sell smaller quantities to stores so shops can stock many items without buying huge loads.

Mass production grew in the late 1800s and early 1900s. For example, Ball Brothers made many mason jars around 1900. Electricity and inventions like the incandescent light bulb in the late 1870s let factories run at night and use more machines, so they could make and ship more goods.

Today your clothes, toys, and food travel by trucks, trains, ships, and sometimes by air or online delivery. How do you think the things you use every day arrived in your town?

Modern manufacturing starts with a design, then uses plans to shape materials into parts and products. Engineers think about which machines and steps will make the product best and fastest. Some factories call this whole activity fabrication. A major method that changed factories is mass production, where many identical items are made quickly using machines and repeated steps.

Electricity and new tools helped mass production grow. Electric motors made machines easier to run and increased factory output. In the early 1900s, car makers and other factories arranged machines and workers in lines so each person or machine did one job. Later, methods like lean manufacturing (or just-in-time production) helped factories cut waste and make parts only when they are needed.

Industrialization spread across Europe and the United States in the early 1800s. Towns grew around textiles, iron, and coal because these materials powered early factories. Between 1900 and 1930, factories began to use electricity and mass production, so they made many more goods faster.

After World War II, ideas from Japan called lean manufacturing helped factories cut waste and work more smoothly. From the 1950s on, these methods spread worldwide. Sometimes production moves to developing countries where costs are lower; this can help those places grow but may mean fewer worker protections.

Factories help a country by creating jobs, paying taxes, and making goods people need. That is why many nations try to build or keep strong manufacturing today.

Factories judge how well they do by cost, quality, dependability, flexibility, and innovation. Because it is hard to be the best at everything, managers make trade-offs—they pick one or two things to focus on. The idea of choosing a main goal is called focus, so a toy maker might choose low price or very high quality, but not both at once.

A key idea from Elizabeth Haas says factories must give value to customers through lower price, better service, or higher quality. Often manufacturing leaders are not in early business talks and must react to choices made by marketing or finance, which can make planning harder.

Making things can also cause social and environmental costs, like harmful waste or health risks for workers. Groups such as NIOSH study safety problems (their NORA program looks at manufacturing). To reduce harm, companies try to cut waste, use energy better, share materials with nearby plants (industrial symbiosis), and remove dangerous chemicals. Laws help too, though rules are stronger in some countries than others.

Factories sometimes need to move heavy machines when they upgrade equipment or change locations. Big presses, metal cutters, and CNC tools are heavy and fragile. Moving them uses special trucks, cranes, and careful rigging. These moves must follow rules and permits, and in North America groups like the Specialized Carriers & Rigging Association help set safety guidance.

Planning is very important so production does not stop for too long. Factories might move machines in stages, work at night, keep extra parts in storage, or check new sites carefully before moving. Big factories plan their layout so parts and machines flow smoothly—one famous example used tens of thousands of machine tools arranged for quick, efficient work.