The Industrial Revolution brought about the advent of mechanization, assembly-line production, and other high-volume, high-consistency means of producing goods. As a result, management practice had to adapt in order to be able to lead enterprises operating in this manner. Most notably, management practices because much more quantitative - with high production volumes, it was possible to collect huge amounts of data and codify that into analysis of outcomes and best practices. Rather than using anecdotal methods or rules of thumb, managers could experiment and method. This was the predecessor to evidence-based management and, one might argue, to today's "big data".