Manufacturing and Construction Industries

          The term manufacturing refers to the production of specific products used by industries or consumers. The term construction refers to the building of permanent or semi permanent additions to the land: factories, office buildings, homes, bridges, tunnels, street, and highways. Thus, when General Motors of Ford Motor Company builds automobiles, it is in the manufacturing business; and when Rockefeller Center's directors want to build another skyscraper, they deal with the construction industry.
          Manufacturing and construction industries are an essential segment of the business world. Their investment in plants and equipment totals many billions of dollars, and they employ millions of workers of all types. The construction industry is often used to measure the state of our economy, because changes in demand for its services are larger and more noticeable then are the changes in demand for basic goods and services.
          Manufacturing and construction industries make up the second key segment of our business world. They convert raw materials into products used by other industries and consumers. As we have noted, a manufacturer may perform only one stage of the total process; for examples, an aluminum factory converts ore into sheet aluminum, which becomes a raw material for the manufacturer of aluminum windows. We will examine the main concerns of manufacturing in Production.