But Canon is hardly the only firm to shift from assembly-line to small production cells.
It allocates an unusually large proportion of the budget to wages, and runs small production lines for airline headsets and aluminium windows.
ECONOMIST: Hard-working immigrants transform the prison system
Darryl Pitt, owner of a small production firm in Manhattan, collects meteorites, traveling frequently to Africa and Asia to chase rocks that have fallen from the sky.
Such a move would be opposed by all wine, distilled spirits, and beer producers most vehemently by small production wineries and distillers, and the growing craft beer industry.
Chablis is the single region on earth most associated with chardonnay grape, where it is has been grown forever and is generally recognized as the best, and the entire legally designated region is just over 10, 000 acres, a pretty small production.
FORBES: The Perfect White Wine for Thanksgiving - Or Any Time
Or maybe Ford is just grasping for reasons to justify the billions of dollars it is spending to retool three North American truck factories for small car production.
You've had the heirloom tomatoes and artisanal, grass-fed steaks, the small-production wine so perfectly translated from the soil you can almost taste the olive trees growing beside the vine rows.
Within this decade, we will see 3D printers doing the small-scale production of previously labor-intensive crafts and goods.
FORBES: Why I Believe That This Will Be The Most Innovative Decade In History
The trial, along with a previously announced urban equivalent in Leicester, will depend on small-scale production of the vehicles.
By the end of this decade, we will see 3D printers doing the small-scale production of previously labor-intensive crafts and goods.
FORBES: How Mexico Can Leapfrog India and Become America's Automaton Workshop
The police and the courts can neither keep up with the surge in small-scale production, nor are they desperately keen to do so.
The intent is to keep production small and keep it perfect.
FORBES: Cult Hit Casa Dragones - Today's Tastemakers' Top Tequila
Volvo Car Corporation starts small-scale production of the Volvo C30 Electric this year, and next year the company will start selling the Volvo V60 Plug-in Hybrid.
ENGADGET: Volvo and Siemens team up to build better electric engines
Many low-cost car producers have set up shop in India, and McKinsey believes it could become a global hub for small-car production the way the U.S. is for pickups.
The sector has been so beaten down that the small exploration and production players seem to have lost what little following they had, and so recent good news has gone mostly unnoticed.
If the yet-to-be-named car is a success when it goes on sale next year, it would herald the emergence of Tata Motors on the global auto scene, mark the advent of India as a global center for small-car production and represent a victory for those who advocate making cheap goods for potential customers at the "bottom of the pyramid" in emerging markets.
General Motors, Chrysler and Toyota have cut back on trucks and accelerated the production of small cars, but Ford is going a step further by converting truck plants to car production.
And I'm proud, rather than grossed out, that my family has played a small role in its production over the past 30 years.
SSTL, which is a world leader in the production of small commercial spacecraft, hopes some of the Strand lessons can filter through to its more traditional products.
Since U.S. farmers provide about 70% of all global corn exports, even small diversions for ethanol production have produced high inflation levels in America and shortages abroad.
High taxes favor capital intensive production, small businesses and entrepreneurs.
More generally, the growing fashion for contracting out production to small independent companies has further slimmed the studios: almost 100, 000 of the people employed in the business are now freelance workers.
Despite their dominance of the truck business in developed markets, however, these global leaders are scarcely present in China, except through joint ventures that account for a relatively small amount of industry production.
There are few skilled workers, the scale of production is small and wage costs are roughly ten times that of India, which dominates the world market and where 900, 000 people work as basic polishers.
Details have not been fixed, but the design will probably be based on one of Mitsubishi's existing small cars, and production will probably take place at Nedcar, a Dutch plant that Mitsubishi shares with Volvo.
Without capital being extended to small businesses they cannot expand production or hire new employees.
At first he worked as a middleman, arranging production for the small, inexpensive promotional items given away by fast-food chains.
These processes often have to be done by hand, because production volumes in small firms are too low for automation.
Subsidies were created during the Depression of the 1930s to help small farmers and ensure domestic production of food and cotton.
应用推荐