Production Engineering

Although production engineering as we know it today was scarcely bom in 1850, it had been forming, in embryo, for centuries. The transition from the iron age to the steel age in the second half of the nineteenth century facilitated the rapid development of machinery at a time when the organization of workers was beginning, and so brought together effectively the two main essentials for production, tools and labour. It is true that even before the epoch of 1066 craftsmen could be described as “planning, controlling and executing processes by which material is given a pre-determined form with the aid of machines, tools and labour,” which is one of the broader definitions of modern production engineering, but it was only after Crompton had invented his mule, Hargreaves his jenny, and Watt his engine, and only after the bitter conflicts between masters and men which led to such legislation as the early Factory Acts that production engineering became a distinct recognizable part of modern industry, a part which could conceivably grow to its present immense stature.