Curriculum Manufacturing & Industry
Manufacturing & Industry
Why factories matter for development - productivity and learning curves, mass production, cars, India's pharmaceutical and electronics industries, clusters, robots, small firms and factory safety.
- Why Manufacturing Matters Why economists have long seen manufacturing as a special engine of development, and whether that is still true today. 📄 Read-aloud
- Learning Curves: How Factories Get Better How production costs fall as firms gain experience, first observed in aircraft factories, and why this matters for industries from solar panels to batteries. 📄 Read-aloud
- Mass Production: From Ford to Toyota How Henry Ford's moving assembly line revolutionised manufacturing, and how Toyota's production system later improved on it. 📄 Read-aloud
- The Automobile Industry Why car making is one of the world's most important industries, how India became a major car producer, and how electric vehicles are shaking it up. 📄 Read-aloud
- India: Pharmacy of the World How India became a leading supplier of generic medicines and vaccines, the policies behind it, and the quality challenges it faces. 📄 Read-aloud
- Electronics Manufacturing in India How India became one of the world's largest mobile phone producers, what drove the growth, and the push to make more components domestically. 📄 Read-aloud
- Manufacturing & Industry: Checkpoint 1 Quick checkpoint - five questions on manufacturing, learning curves, mass production, cars and pharmaceuticals. 5 questions
- Industrial Clusters in India How towns specialising in a single product, from Tiruppur's knitwear to Morbi's ceramics, became powerful manufacturing hubs, and the challenges they face. 📄 Read-aloud
- Manufacturing Jobs in an Age of Robots How industrial robots are changing factory work, which countries use them most, and what research says about their effects on jobs and wages. 📄 Read-aloud
- Why India Has So Many Small Firms Why most Indian manufacturing firms stay very small, the "missing middle" of mid-sized firms, and what this means for productivity and jobs. 📄 Read-aloud
- Factory Safety and Regulation Why factory safety requires regulation, lessons from disasters like Bhopal, and how safety rules balance protection with costs. 📄 Read-aloud
- 3D Printing and the Future of Production How additive manufacturing builds objects layer by layer, where it is already used, and whether it could change where and how goods are made. 📄 Read-aloud
- Deindustrialisation in Rich Countries Why manufacturing's share of jobs has fallen in rich countries for decades, the roles of productivity, trade and consumer demand, and the political debate. 📄 Read-aloud