Manufacturing: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow
How manufacturing changed life in the past 200 years, what it looks like today, and what the future holds.
IPhones, big cities, and lower prices; things possible all because of the Industrial Revolution. When you went to got here you probably weren’t expecting to enter a history class… and you’re not, well, kind of not.
Life today would be impossible to imagine without smartphones, laptops, fast food, your morning coffee, cars, TVs, stovetops, YouTu — you get the point.
The Industrial Revolution changed EVERYTHING.
Here at AMEND, we serve hundreds of amazing clients, most of them in manufacturing. Whether it’s through data analytics, business intelligence, or any of the multitude of tools we have, we find out how to use today’s technology to transform their operations. They’re looking to find a better way, just like what happened in the Industrial Revolution.
It began in England in the late 1700s during a time when most families lived in small, rural villages and lived off their own farming. Daily life was difficult, with people contracting diseases, not getting enough nutrition, and working their fingers to the bone. For the most part, people produced their own clothing, food, and tools that they needed. Soon this would all change with help from the Agricultural Revolution that increased food production and the population in England.
Several factors contributed to England being the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution; the land had great amounts of natural resources, the political environment was stable and allowed for businesses to expand freely, and England was full of merchants who were great at creating demand for more goods.
During the Agricultural Revolution, England advanced from a “cottage industry” to the factory. Instead of families producing their own clothing, cloth merchants would buy the raw wool, have it spun into yarn, then have it woven into textiles to be finished and dyed.
Here’s where the Industrial Revolution comes in: the flying shuttle.
In 1733, John Kay (a British engineer and inventor) received a patent for a device that greatly accelerated the weaving process. Why was it so important? It allowed one person to handle a loom quicker than two people could previously. 2x production — THAT is big.
Along with the flying shuttle, inventions like Thomas Newcomen’s steam engine and Alessandro Volta’s battery simply advanced society at the speed of light. These innovations pumped out so many new products at lower costs and higher efficiencies. All throughout the Industrial Revolutions these inventions got bigger, stronger, and faster.
Virtually no physical objects we have today would be possible without the Industrial Revolution.
Before the Industrial Revolution, 80% of the world’s population were farmers. Today, less than 1% identify themselves as farmers. People flocked from their villages to the big cities’ factories causing city populations to dramatically increase. The average life expectancy increased due to progress in medical knowledge. Overall wealth increased and because of more efficient production, retail prices became lower.
The Industrial Revolution did carry with it some negative effects like bad working conditions, unethical child labor, and some people’s jobs being replaced by machines. The problems that arose in these factories did bring some good. They gave way to labor unions and laws that shape our working world even today.
The Age of Electricity
The massive impact of the first Industrial Revolution, powered by steam, welcomed the second Industrial Revolution, powered by electricity. Which brings us to where we are today.
Machinery got a new form of fuel in electricity when Thomas Edison his electric lighting system to New York City in 1882. The machines powered by steam and coal used in the first Industrial Revolution were simple. But, once electricity was tamed, it quickly spread through the United States and into Europe.
Big corporations in Germany and the United states dominated the electricity industry and developed, produced, and marketed the manufactured products. Companies like Westinghouse and General Electric became the power behind big cities all over the world.
Electricity was quite literally lighting up life.
In factories, human power was being replaced by machine power. Processes were improving and becoming more efficient, just like the change seen in the first Industrial Revolution. Communication was evolving as well. The electric telegraph invented in 1844, and later the telephone in 1876, allowed fast communication across the country.
These were EXCITING times; Elon-Musk-Steve-Jobs-type stuff.
In the late 19th century, Henry Ford asked his peers how to improve transportation and they replied “faster horses.” He came back to them with the Model T. Then in 1913 he revolutionized manufacturing with the assembly line, allowing for specialized stations in the building process — thus making cars more affordable. By World War I, the world was ramping up production within factories. The government gave contracts to produce ammunition, clothing, and other war supplies. World War II was heavily impacted by machine tools, which are machines that build other machines.
Are you seeing it? Technology, systems, processes… they’re constantly improving and becoming more efficient. Today we have theories, classes, and jobs dedicated to these things.
We’re living in such an exciting time in the world’s history. The internet is the electricity of 2018. NFC and Bluetooth just make things easier, just like the flying shuttle made weaving easier. LTE allows us to talk faster, just like the telegraph. Technology is changing how we do things.
We get to utilize technology every day at AMEND. Whether that’s creating new scheduling tools or figuring out why there are backlogs, using data and tools like Microsoft Power BI we can see where the inefficiencies happen and find out how to fix them.
Factories are getting better and they need smart people in them. Processes are going to get more complicated and need more backup. The world is constantly changing — scary to some, exciting to us at AMEND. Transformation and growth is what we’re all about.
The future is happening right now. Who knows what Apple, Google, Amazon are building as we speak. When is that drone going to delivery my groceries in under 2 hours? When is Google going to know what I’m searching for even before I do?
The Industrial Revolution gave us iPhones, big cities, and lower prices.
What is the Internet Revolution going to give us?
Questions? Email me or reach out on LinkedIn!
AMEND Consulting is a leading mid-market management consulting firm dedicated to building unbeatable businesses by creating endless competitive advantages. Double, triple, even quadruple-digit improvements are always realized — typically in 6 months or less. (See our impact here.)
