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Industry

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Business

   GDP composition of sector and labour force by occupation. The green,
   red, and blue components of the colours of the countries represent the
   percentages for the agriculture, industry, and services sectors,
   respectively.
   Enlarge
   GDP composition of sector and labour force by occupation. The green,
   red, and blue components of the colours of the countries represent the
   percentages for the agriculture, industry, and services sectors,
   respectively.

   An industry is generally any grouping of businesses that share a common
   method of generating profits, such as the "music industry", the
   "automobile industry", or the "cattle industry". Usually an industry is
   also used specifically to refer to an area of economic production
   focused on manufacturing which involves large amounts of capital
   investment before any profit can be realized, also called " heavy
   industry.". As of 2004, Financial services is the largest industry (or
   category of industries) in the world in terms of earnings.

   Industry in the second sense became a key sector of production in
   European and North American countries during the Industrial Revolution,
   which upset previous mercantile and feudal economies through many
   successive rapid advances in technology, such as the development of
   steam engines, power looms, and advances in large scale steel and coal
   production. Industrial countries then assumed a capitalist economic
   policy. Railroads and steam-powered ships began speedily integrating
   previously impossibly-distant world markets, enabling private companies
   to develop to then-unheard of size and wealth. Manufacturing is a
   wealth producing sector in an economy. Following the Industrial
   Revolution, perhaps a third of the world's economic output is derived
   from manufacturing industries—more than agriculture's share.

   In economics and urban planning, industrial is a type of land use and
   economic activity involved with manufacturing and production.
   Clark's Sector Model (1950)
   Enlarge
   Clark's Sector Model (1950)

History

   Early industries involved manufacturing goods for trade, including
   weapons, clothing, pottery. In medieval europe, industry became
   dominated by the guilds in cities and towns, who mutual support for the
   member's interests, and maintained standards of workmanship and ethical
   conduct. The industrial revolution led to the development of factories
   for large-scale production, with consequent changes in society.
   Originally the factories were steam-powered, but later transitioned to
   electricity once an electrical grid was developed.

   The mechanized assembly line was introduced to assemble parts in a
   repeatable fashion, with individual workers performing specific steps
   during the process. This led to significant increases in efficiency,
   lowering the cost of the end process. Later automation was increasingly
   used to replace human operators. This process has accelerated with the
   development of the computer and the robot.

Industrial development

Declining industries

   Historically certain manufacturing industries have gone into a decline
   due to various economic factors, including the development of
   replacement technology or the loss of competitive advantage. An example
   of the former is the decline in carriage manufacturing when the
   automobile was mass-produced.

   A recent trend has been the migration of prosperous, industrialized
   nations toward a post-industrial society. This is manifested by an
   increase in the service sector at the expense of manufacturing, and the
   development of an information-based economy, the so-called
   informational revolution. In a post-industrial society, manufacturing
   is relocated to more economically-favorable locations through a process
   of offshoring.

Industrial technology

   There are several branches of technology and engineering specialised
   for industrial application. This includes mathematical models, patented
   inventions and craft skills. See automation, industrial architecture,
   industrial robot, industrial design, industrial process, industrial
   arts and industrial applicability.

Industry sectors and classification

   There are many different kinds of industries, and they are usually
   divided into different classes or sectors. The primary sector of
   industry is agriculture, mining and raw material extraction. The
   secondary sector of industry is manufacturing - which is what is
   colloquially meant by the word "industry". The tertiary sector of
   industry is service production. Sometimes one talks about a quaternary
   sector of industry, consisting of intellectual services.
     * light industry - heavy industry
     * labor-intensive industry - capital-intensive industry
     * By product: chemical industry, petroleum industry, meatpacking
       industry, hospitality industry, food industry, fish industry,
       software industry, paper industry, entertainment industry,
       semiconductor industry, cultural industry, poverty industry

Industry and environment

   See pollution

   Retrieved from " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industry"
   This reference article is mainly selected from the English Wikipedia
   with only minor checks and changes (see www.wikipedia.org for details
   of authors and sources) and is available under the GNU Free
   Documentation License. See also our Disclaimer.
