By and large, one of the most significant inventions mankind has ever come up with is serial production. Such a manufacturing system, also known as mass production, precisely, consists of a flow of production that assigns each worker a particular task, consequently production becomes repetitive, more organised and, therefore, faster and more effective in making a larger amount of items than other more traditional manufacturing methods. Though, while serial production has been of a great advantage for some people, because of what has just been mentioned, it has been a nightmare for others, who have had difficulty in learning new working skills, not to mention others, who have been made redundant, since within such a system, their working contribution became no longer necessary. In the same way, while some believe that mass production has succeeded in producing a tremendous amount of affordable items, others hold that , while this is true, it is also true that mass production has not been very good at responding to the demand for variety, in connection with the aesthetic design of the products.
On the one hand, the benefits serial production has brought are obvious. Above all, it has saved time, it has reduced the probability of human error, it has increased the rate of production, and it has slashed the costs of production. There were tons of time-consuming tasks that can now be performed very simply by operating a machine . As tasks are now predominantly carried out by machinery, the margin for error has decreased. Time has also been saved because the tasks that traditionally used to be carried out altogether by one single person, have been divided into smaller tasks. Each worker is now assigned a different task in the line of production, which has eased the work load of each employee and speeded the whole process up. Evidently, this has resulted in a greater amount of production. In addition, the fact that vast quantities of items can be produced in a matter of minutes, coupled with the fact that a good amount of products can be now made by a small number of workers, both point the great value of the items.
On the other hand, however, there have also been some disadvantages. As a result of machinery being applied to the process of production, most workers needed to get to grips with how to operate them. The worst consequence of this production mode has been the staggering unemployment rate, since machines came to replace the labour force. Most workers were therefore dismissed from the factories without giving them the possibility of occupying any other position – they were left in the lurch .Another negative implication of mass production has been the lack of diversity of the items produced. As products were made by machines, there was no room for customizing them according to the buyers’ particular needs or tastes. Products were identically made in a series.
On balance, serial production could be consider neither the best nor the worst invention humanity has ever designed. Rather, it should be seen as a complex system , which has proved to be effective in that has managed to increase the rate of production at a low cost, but ineffective in that it has not succeeded in keeping all workers in the system . All in all, it cannot be denied that mass production has denifinitely been revolutionary to mankind.
Pages I've visited: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_production
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