factory system, system of manufacturing that began in the 18th century and is based on the concentration of industry into specialized—and often large—establishments. The system arose in the course of the Industrial Revolution.
The factory system replaced the domestic system, in which individual workers used hand tools or simple machinery to fabricate goods in their own homes or in workshops attached to their homes. The use of waterpower and then the steam engine to mechanize processes such as cloth weaving in England in the second half of the 18th century marked the beginning of the factory system. This system was enhanced at the end of the 18th century by the introduction of interchangeable parts in the manufacture of muskets and, subsequently, other types of goods. Prior to this, each part of a musket (or anything else assembled from multiple components) had been individually shaped by a workman to fit with the other parts. In the new system, the musket parts were machined to such precise specifications that a part of any musket could be replaced by the same part from any other musket of the same design. This advance signaled the onset of mass production, in which standardized parts could be assembled by relatively unskilled workmen into complete finished products.
The resulting system, in which work was organized to utilize power-driven machinery and produce goods on a large scale, had important social consequences: formerly, workers had been independent craftsmen who owned their own tools and designated their own working hours, but in the factory system, the employer owned the tools and raw materials and set the hours and other conditions under which the workers laboured. The location of work also changed. Whereas many workers had inhabited rural areas under the domestic system, the factory system concentrated workers in cities and towns, because the new factories had to be located near waterpower and transportation (alongside waterways, roads, or railways). The movement toward industrialization often led to crowded, substandard housing and poor sanitary conditions for the workers. Moreover, many of the new unskilled jobs could be performed equally well by women, men, or children, thus tending to drive down factory wages to subsistence levels. Factories tended to be poorly lit, cluttered, and unsafe places where workers put in long hours for low pay. These harsh conditions gave rise in the second half of the 19th century to the trade-union movement, in which workers organized in an attempt to improve their lot through collective action. (See organized labour.)
Two major advances in the factory system occurred in the early 20th century with the introduction of management science and the assembly line. Scientific management, such as time-and-motion studies, helped rationalize production processes by reducing or eliminating unnecessary and repetitious tasks performed by individual workers. The old system in which workers carried their parts to a stationary assembly point was replaced by the assembly line, in which the product being assembled would pass on a mechanized conveyor from one stationary worker to the next until it was completely assembled.
By the second half of the 20th century, enormous increases in worker productivity—fostered by mechanization and the factory system—had yielded unprecedentedly high standards of living in industrialized nations. Ideally, the modern factory was a well-lit, well-ventilated building that was designed to ensure safe and healthy working conditions mandated by government regulations. The main advance in the factory system in the latter part of the century was that of automation, in which machines were integrated into systems governed by automatic controls, thereby eliminating the need for manual labour while attaining greater consistency and quality in the finished product. Factory production became increasingly globalized, with parts for products originating in different countries and being shipped to their point of assembly. As labour costs in the developed countries continued to rise, many companies in labour-intensive industries relocated their factories to developing nations, where both overhead and labour were cheaper.