Michael S (already5chosen.delete@this.yahoo.com) on January 27, 2017 7:22 am wrote:
> anon (anon.delete@this.anon.com) on January 27, 2017 3:29 am wrote:
> > In practice too. A coal furnace for steel making or power generation
> > may never run out of coal over its operational lifetime.
>
> Coal furnaces are not used in mass steel production for 150+ years.
> When they were used long time ago, they were not operated continuously.
>
> May be, you mean pig iron production?
> Here, indeed, coal (coke, in fact) furnaces are operated continuously for very long periods - like
> many months. Still, it's much shorter than lifetime, which tends to be several tens of years.
>

You're on to a very important point though, about old world manufacture, crafts and industry - where things such as kilns, ovens, furnaces, boilers and the like - were all used as a part of various processes doing various functions. For instance, the 'Waterford' crystal brand had been in existence here in Ireland for a long time, where the crystal workers would melt down the raw glass, add various metals etc to it, to give it that shine, sparkle (when you lift a piece of crystal, you know there's more in there than just glass). Not that long ago, when the plant was closed the workers here refused to vacate the premises and they lived/slept in the place until the very bitter end, I can recall. The idea being, that it would almost that a full re-condition, re-build of their furnaces and kilns equipment if the fire was allowed to go out, and one wanted to re-start it again, as part of a financial rescue of the company. And to be honest about it, we see this across the board in all kinds of industries - where if the process is allowed to slow down, stop whatever - what really wipes out that factory and jobs for a finish - are the costs of re-starting it are deemed too high, and it disappears.

The point about the more modern lean manufacturing industry, is that they're changing the product runs more often, and re-freshing the product design, range etc. It was harder to do that with the old-world craft-based thinking and process. A product that I looked at a while back, was breathable waders made out of a new material 'goretex', that is built up in layers of between three to five layers, to give a compromise between breath-ability and waterproof-ness. These factories in north America were finding it difficult to stay in business there - and the business case kept on coming up - for moving production offshore some place. In the end though, they decided to invest in a really upgraded process, based on Lean design and manufacturing ideas - because in this case, the making of waterproof wader sets, that command a significant whack of money down on the counter - for sports people - quality, and zero flaws in the product was really the selling point. Like I know myself, that when I have one bad experience with a product like this, I'll never again go back to that brand. There's nothing like the feeling of ice cold river water, flowing down the inside of your gear, to make a weekend memorable for all the wrong reasons.