Mass production

Manufacturing is when people or machines make products. There are many different types of manufacturing. One type of manufacturing is mass production. The increased usage of mass production has definitely changed the face of manufacturing. This article discusses more about mass production manufacturing.

What is mass production?

Mass production is a type of manufacturing that allows for products to be created in large quantities. Usually mass production is conducted on an assembly line. Assembly lines can be composed of people or machines who each to a particular job to create a finished product.

Good or bad quality

When many people think of mass production they think of low quality items. But just because something is mass produced does not mean that it is a low quality item; especially these days. Making things in faster and in large quantities does not mean that they are not made well. Parts of the finished product can be made of quality material and be put together by skilled professionals to create a good quality end product.

Benefits of mass production

There are several benefits to mass production. For example, mass production allows the manufacturer to make more products in a certain amount of time. This can save the manufacturer time and money during the production and make them more money since they have more products to sell. And not only does it cut down on the time spent to make the products, but mass production also helps cut down labor costs for the manufacturer.

Mass production can also help reduce human error. People who work on an assembly line are required to do a lot less to put a product together than if they were creating the whole product on their own. With only one or two jobs that are done over and over, a person is less likely to make a mistake. And when jobs originally done by humans are then done by machines the possibility of human error is pretty much nonexistent. When fewer mistakes are made during the manufacturing process more products are made in less time.

The downside to mass production

While mass production can create quality goods these products are very similar to each other, if not exactly the same. It is harder, during mass production, to change the design of a product or to make the products slightly different from each other. Because this is the case, a manufacturer cannot cater to what each of their customers would like in a product.

Another disadvantage to mass production is that people who have a specific skill such as woodwork or sewing may not have as many customers. Usually products created by these individuals end up costing more because they take longer to create and made by a skilled individual. Because of the cost or the wait many people choose to purchase products that have been mass produced instead. With fewer customers these skilled workers may not continue to make their products.

Examples of products

Many different products are mass produced on assembly lines today. One of the most popular products mass produced on assembly lines are cars. Automobiles are probably the first things that come to a person's mind when they hear the words assembly lines. This is likely because mass production was quickly made very popular when cars were first introduced.

Other examples of mass produced products include furniture, clothing, toys, games, computers, kitchen appliances, food, etc. Just about anything can be mass produced these days.