Talk:Mass production/Archives/2012

Please discuss Mass Consumption in the context of Mass Production...

Would someone please discuss the fact that mass production inevitably leads to mass consumption and/or forced/propagandized consumption through advertising. IMO, Mass Production is more than a manufacturing process. In short, it is my instinctive belief (hence my request for more substantive and supported analsysis) that MP is imbued with social, political and ethical contexts as well. In fact, I see mass production as part of the ethos that one might loosely describe as the "American Dream." And I believe instinctively that MP -- producing maximal output at minimal cost -- contributes falsely to a sense of deterministic largesse or entitlement if you will. This in turn ultimately leads to gluttony and in the end to scarcity and unsustainability. no

A jaundiced view, the supports for which are vanishing.

Were the above completely true, there would be, for example, but one model of automobile, "in any color at all as long as it is black". As it is, one can order what he wants and not even a hiccup occurs on the production line -- USUALLY.

Mass production and its currently developing much more powerful successors, such as automated production, are but tools -- yes, to a great extent, tools in the hands of fools. What do you expect when such a powerful idea is put in the same room with politicians -- politicians of ANY stripe at all -- without a guard ? Allenwoll 00:47, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 72.155.50.191 (talk) 06:36, 17 February 2007 (UTC).

Please sign your post! Use four tildes. In answer to your query: this is an encyclopedia, not a place for putting forward your beliefs. What you are talking about would come under cultural studies. This article is only about industrial-level mass production. At most, it could contain a link to an article which would discuss the political/cultural implications. Ryancolm 14:13, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

series production

Redirects here and the lead states mass production is also known as series production. This is not exactly true, series production means something produced in batches, but still countable. Difference: cars would be produced in series, sugar of cement would be mass produced (you don't count individual crystals).--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 21:39, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Actually, sugar is produced in a batch process, the initial charge being crystallized in a series of "strikes", the remainder is non crystalline molasses.Phmoreno (talk) 01:56, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

What about Arkwright's Mill and the Industrial Revolution?

According to this article, mass production starts in the US. This is ignoring the centuries of mass production that occurred in Britain before Henry Ford. And there were American gun factories that did this style of manufacturing prior to Ford. 89.242.211.123 (talk) 01:00, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Wrong title for this article: should be Assembly Line

I think this article is actually about assembly lines and not mass production. 78.147.27.40 (talk) 00:38, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Mass production is not just cars

What about the mass production of glassware, ceramics, cutlery, furniture, clothes and shoes? What about confectionery and canned food? What about woven cloth? All these things were being mass-produced before Henry Ford was born. What about small objects like pins and screws? Adam Smith described how pins were mass-produced in 1776. Apart from mentioning Ventian ship-building techniques, this "history" omits all the important early developments in mass production. Even in the matter of automobile manufacturing, the article omits Ransom Olds, who was the first manufacturer to mass produce cars using an assembly line (not Ford). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.98.16.82 (talk) 12:59, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, you are certainly right about the world of applications beyond cars. But the reply is, basically, this is Wikipedia—no area of content gets built until some volunteer donates the time to do it. As of this writing, cars are the topic that has been most focused on by the volunteers who have shown up so far. This whole article should become different, bigger, and better. Eventually, after some number of years, it will be, as people like you and me chip away at it. This is true in two domains of the encyclopedic coverage of mass production: (1) in the domain of describing "what it is now"; and (2) in the domain of describing "where it came from and how it has developed over the decades". One good point of light toward covering the latter domain is Hounshell 1984. But we'll need a thousand other points of light as well. The history of technology, including industrial history, is a topic that Wikipedia has a long way to go on and that most people know even less about, i.e., almost nothing. The best way to counteract the layperson's ignorance is to build the content here, because this is the only place that the average person will ever look to learn more. Very few people spend their lives working on the topic academically, and of those few, none has shown up here in force yet. I can't entirely blame them; who can afford to come at it on that full-time level for free? I certainly can't; if I could, I would, in a heartbeat. All we volunteers can do is chip away gradually at the lack; or, to put it in the positive-space equivalent, to incrementally build up the coverage. I encourage you to come back and help do that! See you around! — ¾-10 23:48, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Overview

The last paragraph of Overview conatins this sentence:

"One of the descriptions of mass production is that the craftsmanship is in the workbench itself, not the training of the worker; for example, rather than having a skilled worker measure every dimension of each part of the product against the plans or the other parts as it is being formed, there are jigs and gauge blocks that are ready at hand to ensure that the part is made to fit this set-up."

I have no knowledge of this type of manufacturing because I worked with flow processes like pulp, paper and chemicals. In those industries there are on line instruments measuring quality and the quality control people have a sampling and testing program where they test finished product and calibrate certain on line instruments. I would be surprised if making something like parts still used gauge blocks, and I believe that CNC machines so not require fixtures.Phmoreno (talk) 14:02, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

You're both correct, in the sense that you're both touching part of the whole truth. Both pre-CNC and with CNC, it is true that "the skill is built into the tool". But right now the quoted bit only mentions the pre-CNC instance. The CNC instance should also be added there. CNC does eliminate the need for many fixtures and almost all jigs. (Some fixtures are still needed to orient the workpiece with respect to the machine coordinate system.) They should not have lumped gauge blocks (nor other gauges, eg, snap gauges) in with jigs, because they're for inspection and toolmaking more than for production toolpath control. They are still used today, although inspection also involves newer gadgets and methods as well. I will take a crack at fixing the paragraph. — ¾-10 02:12, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Volume production?

Is volume production the same as mass production? Wakablogger2 (talk) 05:16, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Redirect from Commercial-scale facility

I changed the redirect at Commercial-scale facility to point to Mass production (somewhere in the right ballpark) rather than Pilot experiment (which is explicitly not commercial scale).

Doesn't seem ideal though - perhaps someone can point it to a more suitable target?

It's a bit academic since no articles link to Commercial-scale facility, but I had been about to link commercial-scale (which already has one other page linking to it). --Chriswaterguy talk 04:50, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

"Overproduction"

I substantially modified a discussion of "overproduction" as a result of mass production. The section referred the reader to Hounshell, who never once mentions the word "overproduction" in his whole book (and it did not refer the reader to the relevant Wikipedia article). As written it seemed like a promotion for the theories of one author. I identified the theory specifically with him and pointed out that it involves a direct and flat contradiction with Say's law and thus with classical economics. I believe this is legitimate since the article on overproduction deals directly with the Say's law issue. Will O'Neil (talk) 16:36, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for the edit. I know for a fact that my original sentences in this article that cited Hounshell had nothing to do with (alleged) overproduction. Someone came along later and modified the section with careless disregard for what the citations did or didn't point to. That's one annoyance in Wikipedia—people add stuff to the text without due care for what the citation seems to point to afterward. Fortunately most such carelessness is called out and fixed. Thanks for helping with that. — ¾-10 15:19, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

Beaudreau (1996), already listed as a reference, gives a lengthy discussion of overproduction and mass production.Phmoreno (talk) 11:41, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

NPOV -Misleading and self contradictory

Through conflating the emergence of the term "mass production" with the actual process itself, this article from the outset overwhelmingly gives the impression that mass production was an invention of the USA. The background history of (modern) mass production is not introduced until over half way through, and only by way of a small subsection. In my opinion these matters make article fundamentally flawed and misleading. I have consequently placed a POV notice on the article, but would be happy to re-edit if acceptable.

The article promotes its topsy-truvy history from the start, stating in its introduction that: "The term mass production was defined in a 1926 article .. written based on correspondence with Ford Motor Co". Notwithstanding this it then immediately continues: "It was also referenced .. in the London Observer in 1919". The simple chronological fact that the year 1919 came seven years BEFORE the year 1926 is central to the chronology. The two sentences should be reversed to reflect this, rather than arranged to give the impression that the term was coined seven years later than the facts demonstrate it was.

Continuing with topsy-turvy history, approximately 60% of the way through the document, in section 2.2, buried beneath several "fold lines" almost as if it were a matter of only passing interest, can be found a section entitled quite simply: "Before the 20th century". In the light of the preceding bulk of the article, a reader could be forgiven for believing this title refers merely to the time BEFORE mass production was invented. The article puts forward the view that mass production is in fact a 20th century invention. However, what the humble and very brief section actually provides is the true history and origins of mass production, a methodology that turns out to have been practised for over four centuries before Ford was born.

Whilst the impact of the Ford Motor Company, and of the USA in general on the modern world should never be underestimated, that does not give a licence to so corrupt the historical record, especially one in an encyclopedic endeavour such as Wiki.

While I am sincerely grateful that the truth of the matter remains discernible on Wiki, even if with some difficulty, I am genuinely concerned at the role that this article may be playing in the distortion of truth in service of the needs of a particular mythology. LookingGlass (talk) 08:53, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Why don't you just fix it.Phmoreno (talk) 01:35, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Phmoreno; I had about the same reaction when I first read the comment of 2 August. I didn't end up composing any reply at the time. The article could use reorganization and rephrasing, but it's basically just a matter of taking the time and effort—it's a matter of "fixing some disorganized coverage" rather than a matter of "righting an egregious wrong". The article is not offensively biased right now; rather, it's merely scattered out of sequence and needing a forest for the trees, by which I mean a circumspect overview of history that puts all the specific events and details in their context. The article is not "trying" to push any US-centric bias. It just needs work. I may take a stab at it if the spirit moves me to displace other to-do items for the scarce time priority. — ¾-10 22:34, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

I just picked some low-hanging fruit. Better already. More can be done if anyone has time. — ¾-10 22:53, 17 August 2012 (UTC)