The machine industry or machinery industry is a subsector of the industry, that produces and maintains

machine A machine is a physical system that uses power to apply forces and control movement to perform an action. The term is commonly applied to artificial devices, such as those employing engines or motors, but also to natural biological macromol ...

s for consumers, the industry, and most other companies in the economy. This machine industry traditionally belongs to the

heavy industry Heavy industry is an industry that involves one or more characteristics such as large and heavy products; large and heavy equipment and facilities (such as heavy equipment, large machine tools, huge buildings and large-scale infrastructure); o ...

. Nowadays, many smaller industrial manufacturing companies in this branch are considered part of the

light industry Light industry are Industry (economics), industries that usually are less Capital intensity, capital-intensive than heavy industry, heavy industries and are more consumer-oriented than business-oriented, as they typically produce smaller consum ...

. Most machine tool manufacturers in the machinery industry are called machine factories.

Overview

The machine industry is a subsector of the industry that produces a range of products from

power tool A power tool is a tool that is actuator, actuated by an additional engine, power source and mechanism (engineering), mechanism other than the solely manual labour, manual labor used with hand tools. The most common types of power tools use electric ...

s, different types of machines, and domestic technology to

factory A factory, manufacturing plant or production plant is an industrial facility, often a complex consisting of several buildings filled with machinery, where workers manufacture items or operate machines which process each item into another. Th ...

equipment etc. On the one hand the machine industry provides: * The means of production for businesses in the

agriculture Agriculture encompasses crop and livestock production, aquaculture, and forestry for food and non-food products. Agriculture was a key factor in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created ...

mining Mining is the Resource extraction, extraction of valuable geological materials and minerals from the surface of the Earth. Mining is required to obtain most materials that cannot be grown through agriculture, agricultural processes, or feasib ...

, industry and

construction Construction are processes involved in delivering buildings, infrastructure, industrial facilities, and associated activities through to the end of their life. It typically starts with planning, financing, and design that continues until the a ...

. * The means of production for

public utility A public utility company (usually just utility) is an organization that maintains the infrastructure for a public service (often also providing a service using that infrastructure). Public utilities are subject to forms of public control and ...

, such as equipment for the production and distribution of gas, electricity and water. * A range of supporting equipment for all sectors of the economy, such as equipment for heating, ventilation, and

air conditioning Air conditioning, often abbreviated as A/C (US) or air con (UK), is the process of removing heat from an enclosed space to achieve a more comfortable interior temperature, and in some cases, also controlling the humidity of internal air. Air c ...

of buildings. These means of production are called

capital good Capital and its variations may refer to: Common uses * Capital city, a municipality of primary status ** Capital region, a metropolitan region containing the capital ** List of national capitals * Capital letter, an upper-case letter Econ ...

s, because a certain amount of capital is invested. Much of those production machines require regular maintenance, which becomes supplied specialized companies in the machine industry. On the other end the machinery industry supplies consumer goods, including kitchen appliances, refrigerators, washers, dryers and a like. Production of radio and television, however, is generally considered belonging to the electrical equipment industry. The machinery industry itself is a major customer of the steel industry. The production of the machinery industry varies widely from single-unit production and series production to

mass production Mass production, also known as mass production, series production, series manufacture, or continuous production, is the production of substantial amounts of standardized products in a constant flow, including and especially on assembly lines ...

.M.A. Overboom (1996).
Sectorstudie machine-industrie
.'' ECN-Beleidsstudies, Petten. Single-unit production is about constructing unique products, which are specified in specific customer requirements. Due to modular design such devices and machines can often be manufactured in small series, which significantly reduces the costs. From a certain stage in the production, the specific customer requirements are built-in, and the unique product is created.

History

Wilton engineering and slipway Rotterdam 1918

The machinery industry came into existence during the

Industrial Revolution The Industrial Revolution, sometimes divided into the First Industrial Revolution and Second Industrial Revolution, was a transitional period of the global economy toward more widespread, efficient and stable manufacturing processes, succee ...

. Companies in this emerging field grew out of iron foundries, shipyards, forges and repair shops.H.W. Lintsen (red.) (1993). ''Geschiedenis van de techniek in Nederland. De wording van een moderne samenleving 1800-1890. Deel IV''. p.41. Often companies were a combination of machine factory and shipyard. Early in the 20th century several

motorcycle A motorcycle (motorbike, bike; uni (if one-wheeled); trike (if three-wheeled); quad (if four-wheeled)) is a lightweight private 1-to-2 passenger personal motor vehicle Steering, steered by a Motorcycle handlebar, handlebar from a saddle-style ...

and automobile manufacturers began their own machine factories. Prior to the industrial revolution a variety of machines existed such as

clock A clock or chronometer is a device that measures and displays time. The clock is one of the oldest Invention, human inventions, meeting the need to measure intervals of time shorter than the natural units such as the day, the lunar month, a ...

weapon A weapon, arm, or armament is any implement or device that is used to deter, threaten, inflict physical damage, harm, or kill. Weapons are used to increase the efficacy and efficiency of activities such as hunting, crime (e.g., murder), law ...

s and running gear for mills (

watermill A watermill or water mill is a mill that uses hydropower. It is a structure that uses a water wheel or water turbine to drive a mechanical process such as mill (grinding), milling (grinding), rolling, or hammering. Such processes are needed in ...

, windmill, horse mill etc.) Production of these machines were on much smaller scale in artisan workshops mostly for the local or regional market. With the advent of the industrial revolution manufacturing began of composite tools with more complex construction, such as

steam engine A steam engine is a heat engine that performs Work (physics), mechanical work using steam as its working fluid. The steam engine uses the force produced by steam pressure to push a piston back and forth inside a Cylinder (locomotive), cyl ...

s and steam generators for the evolving industry and transport. In addition, the emerging machine factories started making machines for production machines as textile machinery, compressors, agricultural machinery, and engines for ships.

18th century

During the first decades of the industrial revolution in England, from 1750, there was a concentration of labor usually in not yet mechanized factories. Many new machines were invented, which were initially made by the inventors themselves. Early in the 18th century, the first steam engines, the

Newcomen engine The atmospheric engine was invented by Thomas Newcomen in 1712, and is sometimes referred to as the Newcomen fire engine (see below) or Newcomen engine. The engine was operated by condensing steam being drawn into the cylinder, thereby creating ...

, came into use throughout Britain and Europe, principally to pump water out of mines. In the 1770s

James Watt James Watt (; 30 January 1736 (19 January 1736 OS) – 25 August 1819) was a Scottish inventor, mechanical engineer, and chemist who improved on Thomas Newcomen's 1712 Newcomen steam engine with his Watt steam engine in 1776, which was f ...

significantly improved this design. He introduced a steam engine easy employable to supply a large amounts of energy, which set the mechanization of factories underway. In England certain cities concentrated on making specific products, such as specific types of textiles or pottery. Around these cities specialized machinery industry arose in order to enable the mechanization of the plants. Hereby late in the 18th century arose the first machinery industry in the UK and also in Germany and Belgium.

19th century

The Industrial Revolution received a further boost with the upcoming railways. These arose at the beginning of the 19th century in England as innovation in the mining industry. The work in coal mines was hard and dangerous, and so there was a great need for tools to ease this work. In 1804, Richard Trevithick placed the first steam engine on rails, and was in 1825 the Stockton and Darlington Railway was opened, intended to transport coals from the mine to the port. In 1835 the first train drove in continental Europe between Mechelen and Brussels, and in the Netherlands in 1839 the first train drove between Amsterdam and Haarlem. For the machinery industry this brought all sorts of new work with new machinery for metallurgy, machine tool for metalworking, production of steam engines for trains with all its necessities etc. In time the market for the machine industry became wider, specialized products were manufactured for a greater national and often international market. For example, it was not uncommon in the second half of the 19th century that American steelmakers ordered their production in England, where new steelmaking techniques were more advanced. In the far east Japan would import these product until the early 1930s, the creation of an own machinery industry got underway.

20th century to now

The term "machinery industry" came into existence later in the 19th century. One of the first times this branch of industry was recognized as such, and was investigated, was in a production statistics of 1907 created by the British Ministry of Trade and Industry. In this statistic the output of the engineering industry, was divided into forty different categories, including for example, agricultural machinery, machinery for the textile industry and equipment, and parts for train and tram. The inventions of new propulsion techniques based on electric motors, internal combustion engines and gas turbines brought a new generation of machines in the 20th century from cars to household appliances. Not only the product range of the machinery industry increased considerably, but especially smaller machines could also deliver products in much greater numbers fabricated in

. With the rise of mass production in other parts of the industry, there was also a high demand for manufacturing and production systems, to increase the entire production. Shortage of labor in

and industry at the beginning of the second half of the 20th century, raised the need for further mechanization of production, which required for more specific machines. The rise of the computer made further automation of production possible, which in turn set new demands on the machinery industry.

Classification

The machinery industry produces different kind of products, for example, engines, pumps, logistics equipment; for different kind of markets from the agriculture industry, food & beverage industry, manufacturing industry, health industry, and amusement industry till different branches of the consumer market. As such companies in the machine industry can be classified by product of market. In the world of today, all kinds of Industry classifications exists. Some classifications recognize the machine industry as a specific class, and offer a subdivision for this field. For example, the Dutch Standard Industrial Classification of 1993, developed by the Statistics Netherlands, give the following breakdown of the machinery industry: This composition of the machinery industry has been significantly altered with the latest revision of the Dutch Standard Industrial Classification of 1993. The Standard Industrial Classification of 1974 broke down the machinery industry into nine sectors: * Agricultural machine industry *

Metalworking Metalworking is the process of shaping and reshaping metals in order to create useful objects, parts, assemblies, and large scale structures. As a term, it covers a wide and diverse range of processes, skills, and tools for producing objects on e ...

Machine - Industry and machine tool factories * Manufacturers of machinery and equipment for the food, chemical and allied industries * Manufacturers of machinery and equipment for the rubber and plastics * Manufacturers of gears, gearing and driving elements * Manufacturers of machinery and equipment and wood furniture etc. * Manufacturers of steam boiler, and power tools industry * Office machinery industry * Other machinery and equipment industry It may be clear that classification is by markets, and the more recent classification is by product.

Products of the machine industry

The machine industry makes a very diverse range of products. A selection: File:Mercedes V6 DTM Rennmotor 1996.jpg,

Engine An engine or motor is a machine designed to convert one or more forms of energy into mechanical energy. Available energy sources include potential energy (e.g. energy of the Earth's gravitational field as exploited in hydroelectric power ge ...

File:Dampfturbine Montage01.jpg,

Steam turbine A steam turbine or steam turbine engine is a machine or heat engine that extracts thermal energy from pressurized steam and uses it to do mechanical work utilising a rotating output shaft. Its modern manifestation was invented by Sir Charles Par ...

File:General Electric LM6000.jpg,

Gas turbine A gas turbine or gas turbine engine is a type of Internal combustion engine#Continuous combustion, continuous flow internal combustion engine. The main parts common to all gas turbine engines form the power-producing part (known as the gas gene ...

File:Jet pump.jpg,

Pump A pump is a device that moves fluids (liquids or gases), or sometimes Slurry, slurries, by mechanical action, typically converted from electrical energy into hydraulic or pneumatic energy. Mechanical pumps serve in a wide range of application ...

File:ReciprocatingCompressor.jpg, Compressor File:Bogenverzahnung.JPG, Gear File:Francis Turbine Shaft and Bearings.jpg, Bearing of a gas turbine File:2008-08-23 Durham Regional Hospital air conditioner.jpg, Climate control (of a hospital) File:Chiller.jpg, Cooling system File:John Deere 3050 in Ireland 2.jpg,

Tractor A tractor is an engineering vehicle specifically designed to deliver a high tractive effort (or torque) at slow speeds, for the purposes of hauling a Trailer (vehicle), trailer or machinery such as that used in agriculture, mining or constructio ...

File:Claas-lexion-570-1.jpg,

Agricultural machinery Agricultural machinery relates to the machine (mechanical), mechanical structures and devices used in farming or other agriculture. There are list of agricultural machinery, many types of such equipment, from hand tools and power tools to tractor ...

File:Basic guitar toolkit by TT Zop.jpg, Small

tool A tool is an Physical object, object that can extend an individual's ability to modify features of the surrounding environment or help them accomplish a particular task. Although many Tool use by animals, animals use simple tools, only human bei ...

s File:DeckelMaho-DMU50e-MachiningCenter.jpg,

Machine tool A machine tool is a machine for handling or machining metal or other rigid materials, usually by cutting, Boring (manufacturing), boring, grinding (abrasive cutting), grinding, shearing, or other forms of deformations. Machine tools employ some s ...

File:Bulk Ore Conveyor, Redcar Blast Furnace - geograph.org.uk - 1448440.jpg, Machine for mineral extraction File:Production of cheese 1.jpg, Machines for

food industry The food industry is a complex, global network of diverse businesses that supplies most of the food consumed by the world's population. The food industry today has become highly diversified, with manufacturing ranging from small, traditional, ...

File:KUKA Industrial Robots IR.jpg,

Industrial robot An industrial robot is a robot system used for manufacturing. Industrial robots are automated, programmable and capable of movement on three or more axes. Typical applications of robots include robot welding, welding, painting, assembly, Circu ...

Machine industry in different countries

ASEAN

In ASEAN, the machine industry is a vital part of the region's economic structure. As of 2023, the industry employed approximately 2.5 million people across member countries. The sector generated a combined turnover of around $120 billion, with about 65% of this revenue coming from exports. The ASEAN region is home to roughly 12,000 active companies in the machine industry, with the majority being small and medium-sized enterprises. Around 90% of these companies employ fewer than 500 people. On average, each employee in this sector generates approximately $48,000 in revenue annually. Prominent companies in the ASEAN machine industry include ST Engineering (Singapore), Aikawa Iron Works (Thailand), and San Miguel Corporation (Philippines). The industry's significant growth can be attributed to favorable macroeconomic policies, open trade regimes, and increasing demand for manufactured goods both within the region and globally. ASEAN's machine industry has been significantly influenced by advancements in automation and digital infrastructure, contributing to increased productivity and competitiveness on a global scale

Germany

In Germany, in 2011 about 900,000 people were employed in the machine industry and an estimated of 300,000 abroad. The combined turnover of the sector was €238 billion, of which 60% came from export. There were about 6,600 active companies, and 95% of those companies employed less than 500 people. Each employee generated an average of 148,000 Euro. Some of the largest companies in Germany are DMG Mori Seiki AG, GEA Group, Siemens AG, and ThyssenKrupp.

France

In the French machinery industry in 2009 about 650,000 people were employed, and the sector generated a turnover of 44 billion euros. Because of the crisis, the turnover of the sector had fallen by 15 percent. Due to stronger

consumer spending Consumer spending is the total money spent on final goods and services by individuals and households. There are two components of consumer spending: induced consumption (which is affected by the level of income) and autonomous consumption (which ...

and continuing demand from the energy sector and transport sector, the damage of the crisis was still limited. Alternatively, some companies decided to focus their request on used industrial equipment. This guarantee attractive prices and better time delivery.

Japan

In Japan, the machine industry plays a significant role in the economy, employing a considerable number of people and generating substantial revenue. As of 2023, approximately 1.5 million people were employed in the machine tool industry. The combined turnover of the sector was estimated to be around $60 billion, with about 70% of the revenue coming from exports. Japan is home to about 3,000 active companies in the machine industry, with 85% of these companies employing fewer than 500 people. The average revenue generated per employee in the industry is approximately $40,000. Some of the largest and most influential companies in Japan's machine industry include Fanuc Corporation, Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, and DMG Mori Seiki Co., Ltd.

The Netherlands

In the Netherlands in 1996, a total of some 93,000 workers were employed in the machinery industry, with approximately 2,500 companies present. In 1000 of these companies there were working 20 or more employees. In the Netherlands, according to the Chamber of Commerce in this subsector of the industry in 2011 some 15,000 companies were active. Some of the largest companies in the Netherlands are Lely,

Philips Koninklijke Philips N.V. (), simply branded Philips, is a Dutch multinational health technology company that was founded in Eindhoven in 1891. Since 1997, its world headquarters have been situated in Amsterdam, though the Benelux headquarter ...

and Stork B.V.

United States

U.S. machinery industries had total domestic and foreign sales of $413.7 billion in 2011. The United States is the world’s largest market for machinery, as well as the third-largest supplier. American manufacturers held a 58.5 percent share of the U.S. domestic market.The Machinery and Equipment Industry in the United States
at selectusa.commerce.gov. Accessed November 2014

References

External links

Machine shop in Abu Dhabi
{{Authority control Industries (economics) Machines Manufacturing Secondary sector of the economy