Business bookshelf: 'The New Industrial Revolution'

Something big is happening to the business of making things. Those who want to understand it are unlikely to find a better guide than Peter Marsh. A writer for the Financial Times, his observations are sharp, and his book is a useful corrective to those who associate manufacturing with decline.

Global industrial output was 57 times greater in 2010 than it was in 1900. In other words, manufacturing has grown far faster than the overall economy. The main reason for this is that factories keep getting smarter in ways that hair salons do not. Now, says Marsh, the world is on the cusp of another industrial revolution. Advances in electronics, biotechnology and the Internet are accelerating. So is the pace at which innovative ideas spread and are combined with each other. The volume and variety of goods soars, even as prices tumble. Marsh estimates that the world's factories crank out some 10 billion different products each year.

Even this huge number will one day seem paltry if the trend toward "mass customization" continues. Advances in computer-aided design and three-dimensional printing will allow products to be individually tailored -- to produce precisely the tool you want, or a prosthetic leg that fits perfectly -- for little more than the cost of a mass-produced one.

Another big change is that manufacturing has gone global. This does not mean, as some fret, that production has all moved to Chinese sweatshops. It means that any firm, anywhere, can hook up to a global supply chain. A product may be designed in one country and assembled in another, using components from dozens more. Even a small local manufacturer can use the best suppliers the world has to offer.

Manufacturers form a giant ecosystem. Marsh explores its lesser-known nooks, such as Poole, an English resort-town that is home to the world's two biggest makers of air spindles. These, in case you did not know, are small electric motors that are essential in the production of printed circuit boards.