ABSTRACT
Organisations have many different roles. In very broad terms, they can be divided into two major groupings. The first of these is manufacturing, that is the production of tangible products for sale. These vary in scale from large companies, often engaged in mass production of consumer goods, to (often) smaller companies, engaged in customised production. These latter produce made-to-order products. Shipbuilders occupy an unusual position, which they share with relatively few other large manufacturing organisations. The products—ships—are large and made to order.
