Today’s Manufacturing Plants

A manufacturing plant, sometimes called simply a factory, has become synonymous in many people’s minds with environmental decay. Factories seem to be the source of disturbing amounts of choking emissions, toxic chemicals, and polluted water. Of course, factories also produce the goods that make life easier for millions of people around the globe: life-saving drugs, foods, personal care products, household products, and electronics.

Factories originated several hundred years b.c.e. in places that experienced fast population growth such as China. Factories became commonplace in communities in need of large quantities of specific products.

Manufacturing has made strides in improving efficiency, but it needs to improve its
sustainable practices, such as waste reduction, recycling, and factories constructed
of ecologically friendly materials. This motorcycle production line may be using
procedures that have changed little in the past century. (Royal Enfield Motorcycles)

 

Early manufacturing plants ran on human muscle power with a small amount of mechanical help. Manual labor dominated factories through the 1800s until the auto designer Henry Ford revolutionized manufacture by designing mass production. The steam engine, power tools and machinery, and mass production coalesced to reinvent manufacturing soon after Ford’s first assembly line came into being. By the beginning of the 1900s, the Industrial Revolution hit its stride using these engineering innovations. The speed and the efficiency of manufacturing would grow in a way never before seen in history.

A typical manufacturing plant today contains the following components that work together to make production as efficient, inexpensive, and fast as possible:

1. production floor(s), also called the assembly line
2. raw material storage facilities
3. finished product warehouses
4. shipping and receiving sites
5. management and accounting offices

A collection of resources in addition to factory workers keep the plant running day after day; in a healthy economy, manufacturers may run three shifts that allow round-the-clock production seven days a week. Manufacturing plants consume massive amounts of the following resources: water, air, land, energy in the form of oil or coal, and raw materials such as metals, wood, plastics, or fabrics. Some plants do not rely on their own oil- or coal-produced energy, but draw electricity directly from the community’s power supply.

Designers of newer factories have attempted to streamline the traditional format described here for the purpose of saving costs on energy and resources. In order to reduce the costs of storing tons of raw materials and warehouses full of finished products, modern manufacturing has adopted just-in-time production, which minimizes the amount of materials that must be stored at any one time by the company. In just-in-time manufacturing, raw materials come to the factory only in the amounts needed for the production of a new order. The new batch of finished products then enters a distribution chain immediately, usually by truck, and goes directly to the retailers that placed the order. Just-in-time manufacturing helps conserve resources in the following ways:

1. less land needed for large warehouses and storage
2. efficient distribution routes that conserve fuel
3. efficient operations on the production floor to save plant energy demand
4. less wasted raw materials
5. less excess, unsold finished product

Traditional manufacturing relies on large production runs, warehousing of finished products, and management of excess materials and waste. Just-in-time manufacturing consumes raw materials and makes products only as needed and reduces storage to save energy. Many computer makers now use just-in-time manufacturing. Technicians assemble the computer and its components only at the time of each online order.

These innovations streamline manufacturing to conserve resources but also make businesses more profitable. In fact, innovations such as justin- time production were planned mainly for better business and not necessarily to help the environment. Fortunately, many decisions that make a business more profitable can also spare natural resources and energy. Today’s new plans for sustainable factories put a good deal of emphasis on waste reduction and energy conservation, which both help contribute to profits.