Complex processes, producing large mass products and manufacturing on a large scale is what gives heavy industry its name. These industries include manufactures of mass transport such as ships and trains, oil refineries, mining industries, and steel manufacturing. As these industries operate on such a large scale they require a lot of resources such as energy and money to fund them. They also require a lot of industrial space.
These heavy industries are usually found in the primary and secondary sector dealing with other businesses rather than the end user. There are many different types of industry, but most of them can be placed into two categories Light and Heavy industry. These two industries are very similar in some respects and very different in other ways, however they both have a common purpose of producing and manufacturing goods. Opposite to light are heavy industries, which refer to large-scale industries.
The industries that are categorised as heavy include manufactures of mass transport vehicles such as planes, trains and ships, oil refineries, steel producers and mining industries. As you would expect, to manufacture these types of products you need much more resources than light industries. These resources include capital, energy, processing, and space. Unlike the product manufactured by light industries, heavy industry products are sold to other businesses and manufactures as they usually are in the primary or secondary sector.
Being the 6th biggest manufactures in the world, the UK is a great palace for both heavy and light industry. It is not currently any higher, namely due to its size and the decline in manufacturing over the last few decades. The USA, Japan and China currently rank the highest for manufacturing in the world, however they have much more landmass than the UK. One area that we excel at is Aerospace, which is apparent due to the many BAE industrial units littered around Manchester.
Overall the light industries seem to be on the increase and heavy industry seems to be on the decrease. This is due to the boom in manufacture of gadgets and the decline in industries such as mining and vehicle manufacture. What also seems to be a trend is individuals setting them selves up in small industrial units and manufacturing items such as clothing due to the lack of jobs during this economic downturn.
Heavy industry and light industry use different voltages because usually the heavy industry has larger and more powerful machines, therefore the voltage needs to be higher. On the other hand, if high voltage is used in Light industry, with smaller less powerful machines, it could be very dangerous with risk of fire and harm or death to workers and staff.
