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Industry
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Key
terms
Make
sure that you can define:
• primary employment, primary
industry
• secondary employment, secondary
industry, manufacturing industry
• tertiary employment, tertiary
industry, service industry
• quaternary employment, quaternary
industry
Then
make sure that you know, and can use, each of the words printed
in bold in the sentences below.
Manufacturing
industry takes raw materials.
It processes them, using energy, labour and
machinery to make useful products.
Sometimes components are made that are sent to other industrial
plants.
These are then assembled on production lines to
make finished products.
These are sent to the market for sale.
Also
be sure that you know the differences between heavy industry
(Remember: mining is not a type of heavy industry - it
is a primary activity), light industry and information
and communication technology (ICT). Note that the last two
are very closely related.
Industrial
location
It is important to understand why industries are located in particular
places. Entrepreneurs (or factory owners) usually try to locate
where they can make the most profit. One way to make large profits
is by finding the least cost location for a factory. The
costs that have to be taken into account (and which are important
to a student of geography) are:
• collection costs -
the costs of bringing together:
raw materials
energy
labour
• distribution costs
- the costs of sending products to the market
These can be summarised as shown in the diagram below:
Different
industries locate in different places because the balance between
the various costs are different for each. For instance, steel-making
needs large amounts of raw materials, so the costs of transporting
them needs to be as low as possible. The ICT industry uses few
raw materials but needs a lot of skilled labour and easy access
to the market, so these factors are more important in the location
of this industry.
For each industry that you study you must be able to write a quick
summary of its main location factors, using a least cost analysis.
You should note that, in recent years, collection and distribution
costs have been reduced. This is because transport has become
much more efficient. Road transport has largely replaced rail
and water transport for deliveries within countries such as the
UK. Long distance transport has also more efficient. Developments
such as 'bulk cargo handling', 'roll on, roll off', and other
such innovations have cut journey times and handling costs. Learn
how this applies to your industry case studies.
As road transport has become more important, note that industry
has tended to move from inner-city locations to out
of town sites. Factories have closed in the inner cities,
and the land that is left is often referred to as brownfield
sites. New sites on the edge of town are called greenfield
sites. These are cheaper to develop, and often have better
access for lorries than the congested, inner-city brownfield sites.
However, development of greenfield sites is eating into the countryside
and using up valuable land. The government is putting pressure
on developers to reduce the use of new greenfield sites. They
are also offering incentives (such as reduced taxes) to firms
who will develop on brownfield sites.
For most syllabuses you will need to know an example of a town
or city where new development has taken place on the urban fringe.
Learn about the advantages of such sites from the developer's
point of view. Balance this with details about the disadvantages
from the community's point of view. Mapwork
7 shows how new industry is developing on the urban fringe
of Reading. Some of this is greenfield development (for example,
at Theale). However, some is also brownfield development on reclaimed
gravel pits (for example, at Whitley).
Investment by TNCs
TNCs (or trans-national corporations) are becoming more and more
powerful in industry in the modern world. They have branches in
more than one country , and usually in many. They are able to transfer
funds from one country to another, and to build factories, etc.
where they will make the biggest profits. Many countries are keen
to attract inward investment from TNCs because it can bring
many jobs. The TNC employs people, but it also brings indirect
employment because the main plant needs suppliers and services,
and these employ more workers. This leads to a multiplier effect
or upward spiral of development.
You ought to know details of at least one TNC which has invested
in the UK. The car industry has many excellent examples of such
developments. Be sure that you know the advantages of such investment,
but also learn of some of the possible disadvantages. We have recently
been reminded of one main disadvantage. Because of worries about
the strength of the pound, and because the UK has not entered the
'euro currency area', some TNCs seem reluctant to invest in modernising
and expanding their UK factories. They have no long-term commitment
to the UK beyond their desire to maximise profits.
There are also many good examples of investment by TNCs in LEDCs.
Your syllabus may well have one or more examples of such developments.
You should learn these in detail. You should revise the advantages
and disadvantages of such developments very thoroughly. The disadvantages
are probably even greater than in MEDCs like the UK. This is because
LEDCs usually have small economies, and the TNCs are much bigger
than their hosts.
The advantages and disadvantages of investment by TNCs can be summarised
as follows:
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Advantages
TNCs
bring jobs
TNCs pay taxes to the government
Workers gain skills and training
TNC may invest in the country's infrastructure
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Disadvantages
Many
jobs are unskilled and low-paid
TNCs
may expect government
subsidies to encourage investment, and most of the profits
are sent back to theTNCs parent country
Workers
may become dissatisfied with traditional jobs in agriculture,
etc.
Investment
may be moved out of the country if better conditions or
lower wages can be found elsewhere
Laws
about pollution, safety and trade union membership may be
much less strict in LEDCs than in MEDCs
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You should learn in detail how these ideas can be applied to your
case study example(s).
Industry
and the environment
In the work that you have done already you have covered different
aspects of industry and the environment, especially with reference
to brownfield sites and TNCs . This may all seem like bad news
for the environment. We all know that industry produces waste
and that this can pollute the air, water and land. However, new
technology offers solutions to many of these problems, especially
if local and national government can place strict controls on
industry. The reclamation of the gravel pits in Reading (see Mapwork
5) shows one example of this.
You will probably need to know examples of how industry can pollute,
but also how the pollution can be reduced and controlled. Countries
and industries which have led the way in the development of environmental
protection schemes can often make good profits from selling their
schemes to other businesses and other countries as concern for
the environment grows. Recycling will become more common, and
more profitable, as resources are used up.
Recycling does not just apply to household items such as newspaper
and glass. It also means recycling the waste material from industry.
Find out about how this can be done. One good example is the petro-chemical
industry. In a large petro-chemical complex it is said that 'the
waste product of one process becomes the raw material of the next
process.' Some petro-chemical plants have been described as 'spaghetti
bowls'. All parts of the plant are totally inter-connected by
pipes carrying materials from one process to another.
Here is a final thought. At the beginning of this task, reference
was made to 'construction lines'. As raw materials become more
scarce, and as people become more conscious of protecting the
environment, do you think that industry will develop 'deconstruction
plants'? These will be factories that take apart things that have
been used. They will separate out all the different components
and materials so that they can be reused. At the moment this happens
to a certain extent in car breakers yards, where people go to
get cheap parts for older cars. It also happens with fridges,
which must be taken apart carefully so that CFCs do not escape
and cause atmospheric pollution. But how far will this trend increase
in the 21st century?
