Industrial revolution what was it

The First Industrial Revolution began in the 18th century through the use of steam power and mechanisation of production. What before produced threads on simple spinning wheels, the mechanised version achieved eight times the volume in the same time.

Steam power was already known. The use of it for industrial purposes was the greatest breakthrough for increasing human productivity. Instead of weaving looms powered by muscle, steam-engines could be used for power. Developments such as the steamship or some years later the steam-powered locomotive brought about further massive changes because humans and goods could move great distances in fewer hours.

The Second Industrial Revolution began in the 19th century through the discovery of electricity and assembly line production. Henry Ford took the idea of mass production from a slaughterhouse in Chicago: The pigs hung from conveyor belts and each butcher performed only a part of the task of butchering the animal.

Henry Ford carried over these principles into automobile production and drastically altered it in the process. While before one station assembled an entire automobile, now the vehicles were produced in partial steps on the conveyor belt - significantly faster and at lower cost. Since the introduction of these technologies, we are now able to automate an entire production process - without human assistance.

Known examples of this are robots that perform programmed sequences without human intervention. We are currently implementing the Fourth Industrial Revolution. This is characterised by the application of information and communication technologies to industry and is also known as " Industry 4. Whether consumers or businesses, customers are increasingly at the epicenter of the economy, which is all about improving how customers are served. Physical products and services, moreover, can now be enhanced with digital capabilities that increase their value.

New technologies make assets more durable and resilient, while data and analytics are transforming how they are maintained. A world of customer experiences, data-based services, and asset performance through analytics, meanwhile, requires new forms of collaboration, particularly given the speed at which innovation and disruption are taking place. And the emergence of global platforms and other new business models, finally, means that talent, culture, and organizational forms will have to be rethought.

Overall, the inexorable shift from simple digitization the Third Industrial Revolution to innovation based on combinations of technologies the Fourth Industrial Revolution is forcing companies to reexamine the way they do business.

The bottom line, however, is the same: business leaders and senior executives need to understand their changing environment, challenge the assumptions of their operating teams, and relentlessly and continuously innovate.

As the physical, digital, and biological worlds continue to converge, new technologies and platforms will increasingly enable citizens to engage with governments, voice their opinions, coordinate their efforts, and even circumvent the supervision of public authorities. Simultaneously, governments will gain new technological powers to increase their control over populations, based on pervasive surveillance systems and the ability to control digital infrastructure.

On the whole, however, governments will increasingly face pressure to change their current approach to public engagement and policymaking, as their central role of conducting policy diminishes owing to new sources of competition and the redistribution and decentralization of power that new technologies make possible. Ultimately, the ability of government systems and public authorities to adapt will determine their survival.

If they prove capable of embracing a world of disruptive change, subjecting their structures to the levels of transparency and efficiency that will enable them to maintain their competitive edge, they will endure. If they cannot evolve, they will face increasing trouble. This will be particularly true in the realm of regulation. Current systems of public policy and decision-making evolved alongside the Second Industrial Revolution, when decision-makers had time to study a specific issue and develop the necessary response or appropriate regulatory framework.

But such an approach is no longer feasible. How, then, can they preserve the interest of the consumers and the public at large while continuing to support innovation and technological development? This means regulators must continuously adapt to a new, fast-changing environment, reinventing themselves so they can truly understand what it is they are regulating.

To do so, governments and regulatory agencies will need to collaborate closely with business and civil society. The Fourth Industrial Revolution will also profoundly impact the nature of national and international security, affecting both the probability and the nature of conflict. The history of warfare and international security is the history of technological innovation, and today is no exception.

The distinction between war and peace, combatant and noncombatant, and even violence and nonviolence think cyberwarfare is becoming uncomfortably blurry. As this process takes place and new technologies such as autonomous or biological weapons become easier to use, individuals and small groups will increasingly join states in being capable of causing mass harm.

This new vulnerability will lead to new fears. But at the same time, advances in technology will create the potential to reduce the scale or impact of violence, through the development of new modes of protection, for example, or greater precision in targeting.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution, finally, will change not only what we do but also who we are. It will affect our identity and all the issues associated with it: our sense of privacy, our notions of ownership, our consumption patterns, the time we devote to work and leisure, and how we develop our careers, cultivate our skills, meet people, and nurture relationships. The list is endless because it is bound only by our imagination. I am a great enthusiast and early adopter of technology, but sometimes I wonder whether the inexorable integration of technology in our lives could diminish some of our quintessential human capacities, such as compassion and cooperation.

Our relationship with our smartphones is a case in point. One of the greatest individual challenges posed by new information technologies is privacy.

We instinctively understand why it is so essential, yet the tracking and sharing of information about us is a crucial part of the new connectivity. Debates about fundamental issues such as the impact on our inner lives of the loss of control over our data will only intensify in the years ahead. Similarly, the revolutions occurring in biotechnology and AI, which are redefining what it means to be human by pushing back the current thresholds of life span, health, cognition, and capabilities, will compel us to redefine our moral and ethical boundaries.

Neither technology nor the disruption that comes with it is an exogenous force over which humans have no control. All of us are responsible for guiding its evolution, in the decisions we make on a daily basis as citizens, consumers, and investors. We should thus grasp the opportunity and power we have to shape the Fourth Industrial Revolution and direct it toward a future that reflects our common objectives and values. To do this, however, we must develop a comprehensive and globally shared view of how technology is affecting our lives and reshaping our economic, social, cultural, and human environments.

There has never been a time of greater promise, or one of greater potential peril. The use of steam-powered machines in cotton production pushed Britain's economic development from to Built more than years ago, this steam engine still powers the Queens Mill textile factory in Burnley, England, United Kingdom.

This lists the logos of programs or partners of NG Education which have provided or contributed the content on this page. Leveled by. Thursday, January 9, This acceleration in the processes of technical innovation brought about an array of new tools and machines. It also involved more subtle practical improvements in various fields affecting labor, production, and resource use. The technological revolution, and that sense of ever-quickening change, began much earlier than the 18 th century and has continued all the way to the present day.

Perhaps what was most unique about the Industrial Revolution was its merger of technology with industry. Key inventions and innovations served to shape virtually every existing sector of human activity along industrial lines, while also creating many new industries. The following are some key examples of the forces driving change. Agriculture Western European farming methods had been improving gradually over the centuries.

Several factors came together in 18 th -century Britain to bring about a substantial increase in agricultural productivity. These included new types of equipment, such as the seed drill developed by Jethro Tull around Progress was also made in crop rotation and land use, soil health, development of new crop varieties, and animal husbandry.

The result was a sustained increase in yields, capable of feeding a rapidly growing population with improved nutrition. The combination of factors also brought about a shift toward large-scale commercial farming, a trend that continued into the 19 th century and later.

Poorer peasants had a harder time making ends meet through traditional subsistence farming. The enclosure movement, which converted common-use pasture land into private property, contributed to this trend toward market-oriented agriculture.

A great many rural workers and families were forced by circumstance to migrate to the cities to become industrial laborers. Energy Deforestation in England had led to a shortage of wood for lumber and fuel starting in the 16 th century.

The coal-fired steam engine was in many respects the decisive technology of the Industrial Revolution. Steam power was first applied to pump water out of coal mines. For centuries, windmills had been employed in the Netherlands for the roughly similar operation of draining low-lying flood plains. Wind was, and is, a readily available and renewable energy source, but its irregularity was considered a drawback.

Water power was a more popular energy source for grinding grain and other types of mill work in most of preindustrial Europe. By the last quarter of the 18 th century, however, thanks to the work of the Scottish engineer James Watt and his business partner Matthew Boulton, steam engines achieved a high level of efficiency and versatility in their design.

They swiftly became the standard power supply for British, and, later, European industry. The steam engine turned the wheels of mechanized factory production.