Editing Factory system (section)

{{Short description|Method of manufacturing using machinery and division of labor}}
{{Use British English|date=July 2018}} 
[[Image:Zilina zapalkaren.jpg|right|thumb|300px|Reconstructed historical factory in [[Žilina]] ([[Slovakia]]) for production of safety matches.  Originally built in 1915 for the firm ''Wittenberg and Son''.]]

The '''factory system''' is a method of [[manufacturing]] whereby workers and manufacturing equipment are centralized in a [[factory]], the work is supervised and structured through a [[division of labor]], and the manufacturing process is  [[Mechanization|mechanized]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Geraghty |first=Thomas M. |date=2003 |title=Technology, Organization and Complementarity: The Factory System in the British Industrial Revolution |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3132451 |journal=The Journal of Economic History |volume=63 |issue=2 |pages=536–541 |jstor=3132451 |issn=0022-0507}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Pollard |first=Sidney |date=1963 |title=Factory Discipline in the Industrial Revolution |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2598639 |journal=The Economic History Review |volume=16 |issue=2 |pages=254–271 |doi=10.2307/2598639 |jstor=2598639 |issn=0013-0117|url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref>
Compare:
{{cite book
 |author1              = W. C. T.
 |editor-last1         = Palgrave
 |editor-first1        = R. H. Inglis
 |editor-link1         = Inglis Palgrave
 |year                 = 2016
 |orig-date            = 1896
 |chapter              = Factory System
 |title                = Palgrave's Dictionary of Political Economy
 |url                  = https://books.google.com/books?id=K49PDAAAQBAJ
 |volume               = 2
 |edition              = reprint
 |publisher            = Springer
 |page                 = 9
 |isbn                 = 9781349103584
 |access-date          = 18 March 2023
}} - "The factory system is [...] a system of production carried out in [factories]", with a factory defined as "an establishment where several workmen are collected for the purpose of obtaining greater and cheaper conventiences for labour than they could procure individually at their homes, for producing results by their combined efforts which they could not accomplish separately and for preventing the loss occasioned by carrying articles from place to place during the several processes necessary to complete their manufacture."
</ref>
Because of the high capital cost of machinery and factory buildings, factories are typically privately owned by wealthy individuals or corporations who employ the operative labor. Use of machinery with the division of labor reduced the required skill-level of workers and also increased the output per worker.

The factory system was first adopted by successive entrepreneurs in [[United Kingdom|Britain]] at the beginning of the [[Industrial Revolution]] in the late-eighteenth century and later spread around the world.<ref>[[#Walker1993|Walker 1993]], pp.&nbsp;187–88.</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Hutt |first=W. H. |date=1926 |title=The Factory System of the Early 19th Century |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2548551 |journal=Economica |issue=16 |pages=78–93 |doi=10.2307/2548551 |jstor=2548551 |issn=0013-0427|url-access=subscription }}</ref> It replaced the [[putting-out system]] (domestic system).  The main characteristic of the factory system is the use of machinery,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Fairchild |first=Fred Rogers |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/Elementary_Economics/NtsjAAAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22factory+system%22+machinery&pg=PA53&printsec=frontcover |title=Elementary Economics |last2=Furniss |first2=Edgar Stevenson |last3=Buck |first3=Norman Sydney |date=1926 |publisher=Macmillan |language=en}}</ref> originally powered by water or steam and later by electricity.  Other characteristics of the system mostly derive from the use of machinery or [[economies of scale]], the [[centralization]] of [[factories]], and [[standardization]] of [[interchangeable parts]].