I work in R&D to support a high-tech factory in the Midwest. The products are fairly sophisticated, but the volume is too low to support full blown mass product

I work in R&D to support a high-tech factory in the Midwest. The products are fairly sophisticated, but the volume is too low to support full blown mass production techniques. So the workers have to be flexible and take care of process improvements themselves, which we encourage. We let them move from one cell to another, so they're not spending an entire career on one job. Something I've learned is that's hard to generalize about how factories work, or what it's like to work in one. My workplace is drastically different than a steel mill or refinery, for instance.