A factory is defined as a building or set of buildings with facilities for manufacturing large amounts of goods primarily by using machines. The era of big factories started with the industrial revolution when skilled labor started being replaced with machines for more productivity and efficiency. Almost 100 years later, factories still perform the same essential functions.
The designs of the greatest factories in history were very deliberate.
They grew out of an intense focus on incremental process improvement by engineers. As Elon Musk says, “What really matters is the machine that builds the machine, the factory.”
It’s no surprise that many of these factories serve the automotive industry. That is an industry where speeding up the assembly line is an end in itself.
This animated infographic analyzes 10 of the most influential factories of the past 100 years which are some of the largest and most productive factories the world has ever seen. Most importantly, the levels of productivity that these factories have achieved is awe-inspiring.
