INTRODUCTION
Manufacturing is the making of goods on a large scale. It may involve the manufacturing of finished products or of components and parts to be used in the final products. The manufacturing of goods can spin off supporting industries e.g. industries producing plastic moulds and industries involved in surface treatments and packaging, thus providing plenty of job opportunities. Supporting industries can help cut down manufacturers' cost, who would otherwise have to import components and parts from overseas.

Some of the major manufacturing industries are:

(i) Electronics/Electrical (electrical, machinery, precision equipment)
(ii) Chemical Process (industrial chemical, petroleum and plastic products)
(iii) Manufacturing System (fabricated metal products, non-electrical machinery)
(iv) Engineering System (basic metals and transport equipment)
(v) Light Industry (food and beverages, leather and rubber, paper products and printing)
(vi) Heavy Industry (automobile assembling, oil refineries)

The supporting industries include those involved in:

(i) Precision Engineering (tools and dies, machine parts, metal and plastic injection moulds)
(ii) Electronics (printed circuit boards, partially completed parts)
(iii) Surface Treatment (electroplating, metal polishing, heat treatment)
(iv) Packaging (foam, paper, metal and plastic)

Workers who are trained in critical skills, technical competence and quality production are in great demand to ensure the production of quality goods.

JOB DESCRIPTION
Types of jobs available in the manufacturing industry include:

(a) Engineer
- May be involved in research, process development, product development, production planning and control, product testing, quality assurance, failure analysis and customer servicing.
- Creates new products, introduces new designs and uses for mechanical and electronic products.
- Adopts use of robotics to improve quality and productivity.
- Works with industrial customers on product designs to ensure marketability of products.
- Plans the plant's production capacity and line layouts and ensures that goods are manufactured according to specifications.
- Assesses reliability of products by testing samples.
- Monitors and improves the quality and efficiency of testing systems.
- Liaises with industrial customers to check on product satisfaction and acts on negative feedbacks.
- Trains staff on the importance of achieving quality production to ensure minimal rejects, in order to keep costs low and improve productivity.
- Receives data on production faults and analyses the nature and extent of product failures, identifies causes and liaises with process engineer to correct faults.

(b) Planner (Buyer/Planner, Order Administrator, Production Controller, Scheduler)
- Decides on the types and amount of materials, equipment and labour required when orders come in.
- Considers number of units of products to be manufactured and the production deadline.
- Plans schedule to ensure efficient and cost-effective way of production.
- Ensures that materials and plant capacity are managed effectively to maximise output.
- Responsible for buying stocks.

(c) Precision Machinist
- Operates precision machine tools to produce metal parts needed for industrial machineries and consumer products.
- Works with different types of metals to create different finishes for metal surfaces.
- Programmes, sets up and operates computer controlled machineries.

(d) Production Inspector
- Checks the workmanship of products to ensure quality is maintained.
- Trains and coaches production operators in their work.
- Distributes materials to production operators and checks for the correct assembly of components and products.
- May be promoted to production supervisor.
- Plans the number of job orders that each team of supervisors has to carry out and sets the deadlines.
- Troubleshoots problems on productivity and work discipline.

(e) Technical Buyer
- Acquires new production materials, equipment, services and components.
- Analyses, tests and evaluates components and equipment to ensure that they meet engineering specifications.
- Assesses the cost and quality of materials and places orders.
- Liaises with vendors on delivery schedules of materials for production.
- Keeps track of inventory and ensures that stocks are available when needed.

(f) Technician
- Sets up machineries in preparation for the day's production run (Assembly Technician).
- Performs quality control at the production level.
- Conducts preventive maintenance by regularly checking on equipment and replacing worn-out parts (Production and Maintenance Technician).
- Installs, services and repairs plant equipment and facilities.
- Operates sophisticated machineries.
- Handles computerised machineries used in metal production or automated moulding or die-casting machines with robotic arms.
- Ensures that test equipment is in constant working order (Test Technician).
- Performs diagnostic tests on products to determine the causes of failure and carries out procedures to eliminate faults in the system.

(g) Tool and Die Maker/Designer
- Designs, makes or repairs tools and dies, jugs and fixtures (Dies are patterned blocks of metals used to press or cut other metals into a particular shape for making electronics or computer parts. Fixtures are clamps to hold metals for bending or welding. Jugs guide cutting tools and hold materials in position).
- Uses sophisticated computer-aided manufacturing systems to produce parts according to design and specification.
- Designs parts to meet production specification.
- Redesigns and changes existing products.