Answer:
The high cost of machinery could be justified only if a heavy and continuous demand existed for its output. The value placed on machines created a division of labour between the owner of the machines and the employees who operated them. The owner supervised his workers, compelling them to work at the pace of the machine. Even in enterprises that were not yet fully mechanized, the advantages of factory discipline were apparent at an early stage of the Industrial Revolution. Josiah Wedgwood designed his pottery works at Etruria in England “with a view to the strictest economy of labour.” His plant was laid out so that the pots were first formed and then passed through the painting room, the kiln room, the account room (for inventory control), and to storage before shipping. In potteries before this time, the workers could roam from one task to another; in Wedgwood’s, the employees were assigned a particular post and worked at one task only. Out of 278 men, women, and children employed by Wedgwood in 1790, only 5 had no assigned post; the rest were specialists.