In economics and urban planning, industry is a synonym for the secondary sector, which is a type of economic activity involved in the manufacture of goods and raw materials into products.

The industry in the second sense became a dominant sector of production in the European and North American countries during the industrial revolution, which disrupted economies merchant and feudal past with many successive rapid advances in technology, such as the production of steel and coal. It is aided by technological advances, and has continued into new types and sectors to this day. Industrialized countries then undertook an economic policy of capitalist. Railways and steam-driven craft began to rapidly establish links with global markets previously unattainable, allowing private companies to become then-unheard of size and abundance. After the industrial revolution, perhaps a third of economic output of the world is derived from manufacturing industries rather than agriculture part.

The industrial revolution carried out to the development of the factories for the production on a large scale, with the consequent changes of the company. In the beginning the factories steamer- were actuated, but transitioned later with electricity once than an electric grid was developed. The assembly line mechanized was presented to assemble parts of a fashion which one can repeat, with various workmen carrying out of the specific stages during the process. This carried out to the significant increases in the effectiveness, lowering the cost of the process of end. Posterior automation was employed more and more to replace the human operators. This process accelerated with the development of the computer and the robot.