Introduction: manufacturing matters: space, place, time and production

Manufacturing has undeniably transformed the world; from new inventions and technical improvements in machinery and manufactured products to the development of new production systems (Best, 2001; Owen, 2000). Manufacturing has played a critical role in creating the evolving global or international economy and in economic development. The ongoing formation of a global economy would be impossible without products produced by manufacturing production systems. The development of global commodity chains required innovations in logistics and the introduction of containers and container ports. While manufacturing dominated the 19th and early to mid 20th centuries as a significant component of developed market economies, it is sometimes considered to be of less importance from the 1970s. From the 1970s, developed market economies underwent a process of deindustrialization which involved a relative decline in industrial employment and a rise in service employment (Bazen and Thirlwall, 1991; Bluestone and Harrison, 1982). Many accounts of developed market economies assume that manufacturing no longer matters. In a recent British guide for parents, written by an awardwinning teacher, it is claimed that: “Britain’s manufacturing industry is spent. We are in an age where our chief export is intellectual property. To design fantastic things that people will want to buy, we need a nation of people who can dream things up, not simply regurgitate and obey” (Beadle, 2007: 10). This claim misrepresents the role that manufacturing continues to play in developed market economies. Knowledgebased employment has become important, but making rather than just designing products is still important for developed market economies. Employment in manufacturing has declined with productivity improvements and the development of capitaland knowledgeintensive production, but manufacturing still forms a major element of exports from developed market economies and in the creation of gross domestic product (Bryson et al., 2013; Cohen and Zysman, 1987; Fingleton, 1999; Moretti, 2013). Accounts of the decline of manufacturing in the US and UK (Bluestone and Harrison, 1982) and the transfer of production to lowercost production locations have tended to focus too much on the decline in employment. Much of the academic debate has emphasized the emergence of new global commodity chains and the continued fragmentation of production (Dicken et al., 2001). Deindustrialization was explained by differentials in factor inputs with a focus on labor costs and the transfer of production from highto lowcost labor locations. Nevertheless, labor is only one production input and not all manufacturing is labor intensive (Loch et al., 2007). While 1966 is etched in the United Kingdom’s historical consciousness due to exploits with a football, it is also significant as the highpoint of manufacturing employment in the country. In 1966 manufacturing accounted for 35 percent of Gross Domestic Product