From manual work to controlled process — the history of the process industry

As a process operator you control and monitor systems that manufacture products in large quantities — medicine food drinks chemicals ingredients and much more. It is a young trade compared to classic crafts but it is built on a long development from manual work towards controlled processes.

§When production was handcraft

Before industry food, beer, medicine, and chemicals were made in small quantities by hand and experience. The brewer, baker, and pharmacist knew their recipes, but quality could vary from time to time because everything depended on human intuition. Making the same thing every time was difficult.

§The industry and the first factories

With industrialisation production moved into factories with machines boilers tanks and pipes. Now you could produce in far larger quantities. It created a need for people who could operate and maintain the systems — the precursor to today's process operator.

§Target points require adaptation taking close account of weight bearing rollover and landing. How the hoof lands bears weight and rolls over determines the shoe's profile placement and any relief — it is the core of functional farriery.

A decisive shift was that people began to measure and control the process instead of guessing. Temperature pressure flow and quantities could be read and regulated. This made it possible to make the same product in the same quality every time — that is exactly what the process industry does today.

§Automation and Control Rooms

In modern process industry, large systems are controlled from control rooms with screens showing the entire process. Computers regulate many things automatically, but it does not remove the operator — it shifts the role towards monitoring, understanding and intervening when something deviates. An operator who understands the system is still indispensable.

§Requirements, hygiene and traceability

Especially in pharmaceutical and food production the requirements have become very high. Hygiene, purity, documentation and traceability are crucial because the products end up in people. That's why a large part of modern practice is working according to fixed procedures and documenting that everything is done correctly.

§Timeline — the development of process industry

§What the story teaches a process operator

The process industry has moved from feeling to control and from fluctuating to uniform quality. If you understand why measurement, control and documentation have become so important, you understand why the trade looks as it does — and why your attention is still crucial, even when the computer controls.

“The facility can largely control itself. The trade is knowing what it is doing – and intervening when it is not doing as it should.”

— Professional view on the roots of process industry.