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Articles - Publication Date 9.20.1999
Landmarks In Time
Compiled by Pat Panchak
So many events, ideas, people, and inventions have helped shaped manufacturing management that it's difficult to know where to begin when selecting the most significant. Each industry, each country, each era is rich with happenings that spawned new manufacturing management strategies, though until recently the concept of management strategy went unnamed. But it seems our sense of this legacy narrows as the speed of change quickens, the bewildering array of new technologies proliferates, and the number of years past stretches toward 2000. Who in manufacturing management has time to look back?
So as IW looks forward to the future, to establish strategic priorities for the new millennium, we present a glimpse of the past. It's short, quick, to the point. These snapshots of history cut across all countries and industries, and reach back to the beginnings of civilization to highlight the events that changed the course of how manufacturing management is conducted. We hope it provides some needed perspective with which executives can make better decisions. Not every country, industry, or era is equally represented, however. This is not an attempt to provide an encyclopedic list of every significant date in the world's march toward industrialization. In many cases, the events presented here merely serve to represent the beginning or the culmination of a number of events. In all cases, the events named have been culled from a multitude of published sources and interviews with business historians -- primarily James Hoopes of Babson College in Wellesley, Mass., and James Evans of the University of Cincinnati -- rather than primary sources.
Early Civilization
5000 B.C. to 899 A.D.
-5000 to -4001 - Earliest cities in Mesopotamia form.
-3500 to -3001 - Potter's wheel used in Mesopotamia. Masons and Smiths become craftsmen.
-3000 to -2501 - Weaving loom known in Europe. Horses are used to draw vehicles.
-800 to -701 -First iron utensils produced.
251 -- 300 - Pappus of Alexandria describes five machines in use: cogwheel, lever, pulley, screw, and wedge.
700 - Water wheels for mill drive in throughout Europe.
The Middle Ages
900 to 1400
1132 - Henry I of France grants charters of corporate towns, protecting commerce and industry.
1235 - Roger Bacon establishes the importance of using experimental methods.
1250 - Commercial and industrial boom in northern and central Italian cities.
1328 - The invention of the sawmill.
1354 - The mechanical clock installed at Strasbourg Cathedral.
The Renaissance
1400 - 1760
1455 - Gutenberg launches book production in the West.
1500s - World market for mass- produced goods grows at such a pace that traditional urban manufacturers cannot efficiently respond due to guild restrictions and high labor costs.
1592 - Windmills used in Holland to drive mechanical saws.
1599 - In Marseilles, France, first chamber of commerce is founded.
1600s - The process of specialization that would become a feature of western society is beginning to take effect. The disciplines of astronomy, chemistry, and geometry are becoming independent.
1600s - John Cary, a Bristol sugar merchant, presents very detailed research on wages and productivity, new manufactures, and technical change. He points out that technical changes succeed in reducing costs in a series of industries.
1602 - Dutch East India Company is founded with capital of £540,000 in Batavia; it is considered to be the first modern public company. In 1610 the company introduces the word "share" to describe ownership.
1630 - Beginning of public advertising, in Paris.
1630 - The word "capital" first appears in its modern sense. The Oxford English Dictionary defines it as "accumulated wealth reproductively employed."
1649 - Free enterprise in England receives state support.
1660 - F
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