What are the advantages and disadvantages of mass production?

Answer 1

A lot of the same thing can be made cheaply and quickly. Also, things can be made with a higher degree of accuracy (though high precision machinery has to be monitored and calibrated constantly) That's basically it for the advantages. Though there are a lot more disadvantages, these 2 advantages most often outweigh them.

One disadvantage is, if something is wrong with the product, there is sometimes no way to tell until several have already been made. Any time machinery is changed out, or the product is redesigned there could be errors. This all results in wasted resources.

Building factories and machines to mass produce is expensive (another disadvantage in itself). This makes it bad for highly specialized products. Some items just will not sell enough to pay for such massive machinery. Some products have to be "made to fit" and just cant be churned out in one style.

Limited resources can be another issue. If you can't afford to lose any of your resources, mass production wouldn't suit you. IE diamond cutting would be bad for mass production, because if something went wrong with the machine, the losses would be catastrophic.

If one piece or section of your production line breaks, even one small bolt comes loose, it can result in heavy losses. Not only can this cause malformed or unusable products, but also the time the whole system has to be shut down for repairs. thus you have to hire vigilant maintainence crews.

Mass production requires many workers to maintain, working in such dangerous facilities requires you to pay them higher than average wages, including insurance.