Industrial Systems
- Industrial systems have inputs, processes and outputs
- Inputs - basic items needed to begin the process
- Raw materials, labour, energy, capital, land and buildings etc.
- Processes - activities that take place to make a finished product (goods)
- Cutting, sewing, welding, brewing, painting, steel moulding etc.
- Outputs - finished products, by-products, products for continued manufacturing elsewhere and waste
- Finished products such as cars, clothing, beer, shoes etc.
- By-product such as Marmite from beer brewing
- Continued manufacturing (part manufacturing) such as cleaning wool or cotton, weaving wool or cotton for material, material made into clothes for a finished product etc.
- Waste is produced with all manufacturing; it has no value but creates a cost for disposal
- Inputs - basic items needed to begin the process
- Manufacturing can be classified as:
- Heavy - iron and steel manufacturing is heavy industry as it uses large, bulky raw materials on a huge scale producing big items
- Light - computer manufacturing, smart phone assembly, clothing, micro-brewing etc.
- Some industries need a lot of processes or processing, and this can lead to heavy pollution
|
Industry |
Input |
Processes |
Output |
Impact |
|
Specialised steel production |
alloys such as chromium, cobalt | electric arc furnace, oxygen furnace, rolling, cutting | steel slabs, ingots, sheets, waste, slag, gases | noise, dust, air pollution, smell, water pollution |
|
Iron production |
iron ore, coke, limestone to separate iron from impurities, water, recycled scrap iron, |
blast furnace to melt iron ore, coke oven, rolling into sheets, cutting into lengths | cast iron, pig iron, slag, sulphur dioxide, carbon dioxide, hydrogen sulphide, water, heat | large building, noise, air pollution, smell, water pollution, contaminated cooling water, scrubber waste, risk of fire and explosions |
- The sectors of industry are interrelated, and an individual industry will often use more than one sector to produce products
High-tech industry
- Fastest growing industry in the world
- Most MEDCs and NICs have at least one hub of high-tech industry
- The industry has a high degree of research and development to maintain a competitive edge
- Manufacturing is mostly computer automated
- Outputs include precision instrumentation, pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, mobile phones, vaccines etc.
Worked example
In which sector would the following people who are employed in a factory, work?
[3]
| Primary | Secondary | Tertiary | Quaternary |
- Workers who carry out research and use it to design new machines
- Drivers of lorries transporting products from a factory
- People operating machines in a factory
- Answers:
- Quaternary
- Tertiary
- Secondary
