The machine industry or machinery industry is a subsector of the industry, that produces and maintains machines for consumers, the industry, and most other companies in the economy. This machine industry traditionally belongs to the heavy industry. Nowadays, many smaller industrial manufacturing companies in this branch are considered part of the light industry. Most machine tool manufacturers in the machinery industry are called machine factories.
Overview The machine industry is a subsector of the industry that produces a range of products from power tools, different types of machines, and domestic technology to factory equipment etc. On the one hand the machine industry provides:
The means of production for businesses in the agriculture, mining, industry and construction. The means of production for public utility, such as equipment for the production and distribution of gas, electricity and water. A range of supporting equipment for all sectors of the economy, such as equipment for heating, ventilation, and air conditioning of buildings. These means of production are called capital goods, because a certain amount of capital is invested. Much of those production machines require regular maintenance, which becomes supplied specialized companies in the machine industry. On the other end the machinery industry supplies consumer goods, including kitchen appliances, refrigerators, washers, dryers and a like. Production of radio and television, however, is generally considered belonging to the electrical equipment industry. The machinery industry itself is a major customer of the steel industry. The production of the machinery industry varies widely from single-unit production and series production to mass production. Single-unit production is about constructing unique products, which are specified in specific customer requirements. Due to modular design such devices and machines can often be manufactured in small series, which significantly reduces the costs. From a certain stage in the production, the specific customer requirements are built-in, and the unique product is created.
History
The machinery industry came into existence during the Industrial Revolution. Companies in this emerging field grew out of iron foundries, shipyards, forges and repair shops. Often companies were a combination of machine factory and shipyard. Early in the 20th century several motorcycle and automobile manufacturers began their own machine factories. Prior to the industrial revolution a variety of machines existed such as clocks, weapons and running gear for mills (watermill, windmill, horse mill etc.) Production of these machines were on much smaller scale in artisan workshops mostly for the local or regional market. With the advent of the industrial revolution manufacturing began of composite tools with more complex construction, such as steam engines and steam generators for the evolving industry and transport. In addition, the emerging machine factories started making machines for production machines as textile machinery, compressors, agricultural machinery, and engines for ships.
18th century During the first decades of the industrial revolution in England, from 1750, there was a concentration of labor usually in not yet mechanized factories. Many new machines were invented, which were initially made by the inventors themselves. Early in the 18th century, the first steam engines, the Newcomen engine, came into use throughout Britain and Europe, principally to pump water out of mines. In the 1770s James Watt significantly improved this design. He introduced a steam engine easy employable to supply a large amounts of energy, which set the mechanization of factories underway. In England certain cities concentrated on making specific products, such as specific types of textiles or pottery. Around these cities specialized machinery industry arose in order to enable the mechanization of the plants. Hereby late in the 18th century arose the first machinery industry in the UK and also in Germany and Belgium.
19th century The Industrial Revolution received a further boost with the upcoming railways. These arose at the beginning of the 19th century in England as innovation in the mining industry. The work in coal mines was hard and dangerous, and so there was a great need for tools to ease this work. In 1804, Richard Trevithick placed the first steam engine on rails, and was in 1825 the Stockton and Darlington Railway was opened, intended to transport coals from the mine to the port. In 1835 the first train drove in continental Europe between Mechelen and Brussels, and in the Netherlands in 1839 the first train drove between Amsterdam and Haarlem. For the machinery industry this brought all sorts of new work with new machinery for metallurgy, machine tool for metalworking, production of steam engines for trains with all its necessities etc. In time the market for the machine industry became wider, specialized products were manufactured for a greater national and often international market. For example, it was not uncommon in the second half of the 19th century that American steelmakers ordered their production in England, where new steelmaking techniques were more advanced. In the far east Japan would import these product until the early 1930s, the creation of an own machinery industry got underway.
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