20 Examples of Heavy Industry - encyclopedia

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Examples of heavy industry

Theheavy industry is the activity that manufacturessemi-finished products, which then function as capital goods for the subsequent production of other goods intended for consumption by individuals.

The production process in heavy industry is, many times, the same as that dedicated to the extraction and transformation of raw Materials in the machinery necessary for production.

Undoubtedly, the nineteenth century was the one that brought the greatest advances in history with respect to the industry. The beginning of the revolutionary process occurred in rural areas and it was expanding continuously to the most urban sectors of Europe, but undoubtedly it had an exponential growth motivated by the implementation of the iron as material for use, replaced some time later by the steel which is an alloy that combines iron with carbon and other elements.

Great Britain was the country that stood out the most in this process of technification, and consolidated itself as a producer of iron and coal: this gave it a fundamental role at the head of international heavy industry.

The industrial producing countriesBut especially those who were at the forefront of advances in heavy industry, had very high comparative advantages and ended up exporting their products and techniques to practically the whole world. Since then until the consolidation of technology and computing, having heavy industry potential meant being at the forefront of the global economy.

However, heavy industry has some characteristics that make it much more complex than light industry. The products that it makes are intended to produce other goods, so there are no characteristics linked to the appearance of the product that are valid here: it is common for heavy industrial products do not have too many colors or attractive shapesInstead, the production companies concentrate all their potential on optimizing the quality of the machinery produced.

Due to the production processes of heavy industry, it is typical that this kind of economic activities generate in return some waste that are extremely harmful to the environment that surrounds the physical space where it occurs: factories usually expel different types of gases that are harmful to the atmosphere (air pollution), or they usually have wastes that they expel into lakes or rivers (water contamination), heavily polluting the environment.

This is why heavy industries are usually located in regions rather isolated from large cities, where few people live and most of those who are there do it only during the day.

Heavy industry is not so labor intensive, and employees can also be exposed to the different types of pollution that are expelled from there (See: air pollutants). If governments try to regulate these levels of pollution through legislation, companies often argue that the activity would stop giving revenue and then they should close it, exposing the work of employees.

The State also has a benefit at the macroeconomic level of heavy industry, since the goods produced are especially expensive and when exported, they generate a strong inflow of foreign currency to the country, and above all a potential for industrial development without being exposed to the vicissitudes of needing to import this class of goods.