Manufacturing industry

Manufacturing is the production of merchandise for use or sale using labour and machines, tools, chemical and biological processing, or formulation. The term may refer to a range of human activity, from handicraft to high tech, but is most commonly applied to industrial production, in which raw materials are transformed into finished goods on a large scale. Such finished goods may be sold to other manufacturers for the production of other, more complex products, such as aircraft, household appliances or automobiles, or sold to wholesalers, who in turn sell them to retailers, who then sell them to end users and consumers.

Manufacturing engineering or manufacturing process are the steps through which raw materials are transformed into a final product. The manufacturing process begins with the product design, and materials specification from which the product is made. These materials are then modified through manufacturing processes to become the required part.

Manufacturing takes turns under all types of economic systems. In capitalist free markets, goods are manufactured on demand by millions of small independent producers in direct competition with each other. In capitalist captive markets, goods are mass produced by legally protected publishing and manufacturing monopolies. In Collectivist markets, the manufacturing of goods is entirely directed by the state based on necessity.

Modern manufacturing includes all intermediate processes required the production and integration of a product's components. Some industries, such as semiconductor and steel manufacturers use the term fabrication instead.

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