CHAPTER

INTRODUCTION TO
MANUFACTURING

Manufacturing is a human activity that pervades all phases of our life. Derived
from the Latin (mamis = hand, jactus = made), the word is used to describe "the
making of goods and articles by hand or, especially by machinery, often on a
large scale and with division of labor." An understanding of the role of manufac-
turing in human development is essential for everyone involved in its study and
practice.

1-1 HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENTS

The history of manufacturing is marked by gradual developments; however, some
developments were of such substantial social consequences that they can rightly
be regarded as revolutionary.

1-1-1 Early Developments

Manufacturing has been practiced for several thousand years, beginning with the
production of stone, ceramic, and metallic articles. The Romans already had
factories for the mass production of glassware, and many activities, including
mining, metallurgy, and the textile industry have long employed the principle of
division of labor. Nevertheless, much of manufacturing remained for centuries an
essentially individual activity, practiced by artisans and their apprentices. The
ingenuity of successive generations of artisans led to the development of many
processes and to a great variety of products (Table 1-1), but the scale of
production was necessarily limited by the available power. Water power supple-
mented muscle power in the Middle Ages, and then only to the extent allowed by
1
TABLE 1-1 HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF MANUFACTURING UNIT PROCESSES

Machine
Year Casting Deformation Joining Machining Ceramics Plastics Control

4000 B.C. Stone, clay Bending, Riveting Stone, emery, Earthenware Wood, Wedge
molds forging (Au, corundum, garnet, natural fibers Manual
Ag, Cu) flint
2500 Lost wax Shearing, Soldering, Drilling, Glass beads, Wheel
(bronze) sheet brazing sawing potter's wheel
forming
1000 Hot forging Forge welding, Iron saws Glass pressing, Lever,
(iron), wire gluing glazing pulley
drawing (?)
A.D. 0 Coining Turning (wood), Glass blowing Screw press,
(brass), filing crank
forging
(steel)
1000 Wire drawing Stoneware, Protein Waterwheel
porcelain glues
(China)
1400 Sand casting, Water hammer Sandpaper Majolica, Connecting rod,
cast iron crystal glass flywheel
1600 Permanent mold Tinplate can, Wheel lathe
rolling (Pb) (wood)
1800 Flasks Deep drawing, Boring, Plate glass; Steam engine
rolling turning, porcelain
(steel), screw cutting (Germany)
extrusion
(Pb)
1850 Centrifugal, Steam hammer, Shaping, Window glass Vulcanization Mechanization
molding tinplate milling, from slit
machine rolling copying lathe cylinder
1875 Rail rolling, Turret lathe, Celluloid,
continuous universal mill, rubber
rolling vitrified wheel extrusion,
molding
 1900 Tube rolling, Oxyacetylene, Geared lathe, Automatic bottle Electric
extrusion arc welding, automatic screw making motor
(Cu) electrical machine, hobbing,
resistance high-speed steel,
welding synthetic SiC,
Al 2 0 3
1920 Die casting W wire Coated electrode Bakelite, vinyl Hard automation
(from acetate, (electrical)
powder) casting,
cold molding,
injection
molding
1940 Lost wax for Extrusion Submerged arc, PVC, Acrylics,
engineering (steel) structural PMMA, PE,
parts, adhesives polystyrene
resin-bonded nylon,
sand synthetic
rubber,
polyesters,
transfer
molding,
foaming
1950 Ceramic mold, Cold extrusion TIG welding, EDM Glass ABS, silicones, Numerical
nodular iron, (steel) MIG welding, ceramics fluorocarbons, control (NC)
semiconductors electroslag polyurethane
1960 Rapid Plasma arc, Manufactured Float glass Acetals, Computer-NC
solidification electron diamond polycarbonate,
beam polypropylene,
cyanoacrylate
1970 Isothermal Laser CBN Polyimide, Adaptive
forging aramids control,
polybutylene programmable
controller

CO
4 INTRODUCTION T O M A N U F A C T U R I N G PROCESSES

the availability of swift water; this limited the location of industries and the rate
of growth of industrial production.

1-1-2 The First Industrial Revolution

At the end of the 18th century, the development of the steam engine made power
available in large quantities and at many locations. This spurred advances in
manufacturing processes (Table 1-1) and facilitated the growth of production,
providing an abundance of goods and, with the mechanization of agriculture, of
agricultural products. As a result, society was also transformed, and later these
developments came to be recognized as the industrial revolution. It was char-
acterized by mechanical power supplementing the physical power of the worker,
with many machines driven by belts from a common drive shaft.
Toward the middle of the 19th century, some functions of the worker were
taken over by machines in which mechanical components such as cams and levers
were ingeniously arranged to perform relatively simple and repetitive tasks. Such
mechanization or "hard automation" eliminated some jobs, but the workers thus
displaced—together with those made redundant in agriculture—usually found
jobs in the expanding manufacturing and service sectors of the economy. Around
the turn of the 20th century, development was further aided by the introduction
of electric power: Machines could now be individually driven and controls based
on electric circuits allowed a fair degree of sophistication.

1-1-3 The Second Industrial Revolution

Beginning with the second half of the 20th century, further developments have
taken place. Computers have begun to offer hitherto undreamt of computational
power, and solid-state electronics—growing out of the transistor—permitted the
fabrication of devices of great versatility at ever decreasing costs. In the early
1970s the availability of the microchip, with thousands of electronic components
crammed onto a tiny silicon wafer, made it possible to perform computational,
control, planning, and management tasks at high speeds, very often in real time
(i.e., while the process to be controlled takes place) and at low cost. The
consequences have been far-reaching in every facet of our lives and are now
beginning to be felt in manufacturing; the limits of developments are still only
dimly perceived. It has been recognized, nevertheless, that the social conse-
quences of these changes will be as fundamental as those wrought by the
19th-century industrial revolution, and most observers now agree that we are in
the midst of the second industrial revolution.
A characteristic of the second industrial revolution is that, in addition to the
possibility of replacing most—or potentially all — physical labor, it is now also
feasible to enhance and sometimes even replace mental effort. In manufacturing
this means the introduction of true automation, with appropriate sensors provid-
ing the feedback which then allows the control device to take "intelligent" action.
Such closed-loop control is not really new; the mechanical governor on the steam
 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION TO MANUFACTURING 5

engine fulfilled the same function. The difference is that microelectronics allows
the control of a large number of variables at a substantial level of sophistication.
Some consequences of these developments are already noticeable: Many
dangerous, physically demanding, or boring jobs are performed by machines or
robots equipped with programmable controllers; product variety is increasing;
quality is improving; productivity—as expressed by output per unit labor—is
rising; demand on natural resources is decreasing. There are also signs of possible
undesirable consequences, in particular, the decline in the number of people
employed in traditional fields. It is not clear whether the new technologies will
create an adequate number of new jobs. We are facing an uncertain economic
future, in which the role of manufacturing is often hotly debated.

1-2 THE ECONOMIC ROLE OF MANUFACTURING

Manufacturing has often been cast as the villain on the stage of human develop-
ment. Indeed, the first industrial revolution began with little concern for the very
people who made this revolution possible. Yet the factory was the alternative
willingly chosen by the masses seeking to escape their rural existence: The idyllic,
pastoral qualities of rural life extolled by poets and writers were mostly imagin-
ary, while reality was burdened with famine and disease. Modern demographic
studies show that the misery of rural life prompted people to crowd into cities
even before the first industrial revolution. Since then, the excesses of the early
industrial revolution have been moderated and the growth of manufacturing has
led to undeniable advances, not only in providing an abundance of material
possessions, but also in creating the economic basis for genuine improvements in
the quality of life.
There are no universal measures to express well-being but, in the absence of
better measures, the gross national product (GNP; the sum of the value of all
goods and services produced in a national economy) can be taken as a measure of
material well-being. Even for this, it is an imperfect measure because it excludes
the value of all work performed in the home, by voluntary organizations, etc.
Thus it presents a distorted picture in favor of industrially developed nations.
If one analyzes the components of the GNP, it is evident that material wealth
comes from only two substantial, basic sources: material resources, and the
knowledge and energy that people apply in utilizing these resources. Agriculture
and mining are of prime importance, yet they represent only 5-8% of the GNP of
industrially developed nations. Manufacturing had claimed the largest single
share, at least until the 1950s. Indeed, one could make the argument that the
mark of an industrially developed nation is the proportionately large contribution
of manufacturing to national wealth. A review of typical data for industrialized
and developing nations is instructive. The data plotted in Fig. 1-1 should not be
taken at face value, since they are distorted by the differences in the purchasing
power of local currencies and by the exclusion of all unpaid services which make
up such a large portion of wealth generated, especially in the industrially less
developed countries. Nevertheless, the overall conclusion is clear: For nations