Tecnologia Meccanica: Industrial Production - Introductory Concepts and Terminology

Key Terms

• Product: A tangible (i.e., physical) good that can be sold.
  • Discrete goods: cars, appliances, etc.
  • Continuous goods: gas, liquids, powders, etc.
• Service: A less-tangible (or intangible) good that can still be sold; e.g., a report, a computational analysis, a medical diagnosis; but also: a movie, a piece of music, etc.
• Industrial product: Made in multiple, nominally identical units (quantified as: "count" for discrete; "volume" or "weight" for continuous).
  • Implies that industrial production uses machinery to ensure nominally identical units.
• Artisanal product: Made in fewer units (or only one), by humans, with a dominance of manual tools (less guarantee for identical units).

Key Terms (II)

• Manufacturing: Refers to the fabrication of industrial products (discrete or continuous).
  • Not used for artisanal products, not used for services.
  • Originally from "manu factus" (made by hand), now has a more general meaning: activity where the product is created by applying a sequence of transformations to raw materials and/or existing items.
• Production: Often used as a synonym for "manufacturing."
  • More rigorously: "production" has a more general meaning: it refers to the generation of any product or service.
  • Sometimes also defined as the "creation of value," where a product/service has "value" when it creates an increased "benefit" to its users.

Production Sectors

• Based on the International Standard Industrial Classification (ISIC) - United Nations.
• Part of these is covered by MET (Mechanical Technology).

Types of Industries

• Adapted from: International Standard Industrial Classification (ISIC) - United Nations
• Process industry (discrete).
• Product industry.

Product Categories in Discrete Product Industry

• Consumer goods: goods destined to be sold to the public.
• Capital goods: goods destined to be sold to other manufacturing companies and/or service providers.

What About MET?

• In MET, the attention will be dedicated to:
  • Secondary sector
  • Manufacturing processes for the discrete product industry
  • Both consumer and capital goods

Summary

• Product, service, industrial product, artisanal product
• Manufacturing vs. production
• Production sectors: primary, secondary, tertiary
• Types of industries: process industries vs. discrete product industries
• (Discrete) product categories; also: consumer vs. capital goods
• What is covered by MET?

ENG-ITA Dictionary

• Product: prodotto
• Process: processo
• Manufacturing, manufacturing sector: manifattura, settore manifatturiero
• Industrial vs. artisanal production: produzione industriale vs. artigianale
• Process industry, discrete product industry: industria di processo, industria della produzione discreta
• Primary, secondary, tertiary sector: settore primario, secondario e terziario
• Consumer goods: beni di consumo
• Capital goods: beni strumentali