A machine factory is a company that produces machines. These companies traditionally belong to the heavy industry sector in comparison to a more consumer oriented and less capital intensive light industry. Today many companies make more sophisticated smaller machines, and they belong to the light industry. The economic sector of machine factories is called the machine industry.
History
The machinery factories came into existence in the course of the Industrial Revolution. Late 18th century most production machines, were still made of wood and manufactured in local workshops. The first industrial factories, such as cotton mills and cotton weavers, started their own workshops, where clockmakers, instrument makers, joiners and cabinet makers were employed to build and maintain the production machines.[1]
In the first half of the 19th century gradually the wooden machinery got replaced by metal machine. The machine building gradually broke loose from the textile industry and independent companies emerged specializing in textile machinery, machine tools, locomotives, large steam engines, etc.[1] Most companies in countries as England, France and Germany kept making their own special tools and machines. Lintsen recalled that "only shortly before 1850, there is clear evidence of success in the effort to build 'machines with machines'. A number of so-called machine tools - lathes, planers, drills, cutters - gained the degree of accuracy needed to produce larger series of interchangeable parts. But even these standardization of parts did not mean the end of the individual craftsmanship in the machine industry."[1]
Types of machine factories
Agricultural machine factories
Agricultural machinery is machinery used in the operation of an agricultural area or farm. There is a range of machinery from tractor and to agricultural implements for soil cultivation, planting, fertilizing & pest control, irrigation, produce sorter, harvesting, hay making, loading and milking. These are produced by agricultural machinery manufacturers, and farming machines factories.
Engine manufacturers
An engine or motor is a machine designed to convert energy into useful mechanical motion. Heat engines, including internal combustion engines and external combustion engines (such as steam engines) burn a fuel to create heat, which then creates motion. Electric motors convert electrical energy into mechanical motion, pneumatic motors use compressed air and others—such as clockwork motors in wind-up toys—use elastic energy. In biological systems, molecular motors, like myosins in muscles, use chemical energy to create motion.
Home appliance manufacturers
Home appliances are electrical/mechanical machines which accomplish some household functions, such as cooking or cleaning. This division is noticeable in the
See also
- Machine
- Machine industry
- Machine shop
- Machine tool
- Machine tool builder
Further reading
- H.W. Lintsen (red.) (1993). Geschiedenis van de techniek in Nederland. De wording van een moderne samenleving 1800-1890. Deel IV.
- .
- Roe, Joseph Wickham (1916), English and American Tool Builders, New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press