The Many Jobs Behind Your Everyday Appliances

Have you ever gone to the refrigerator to procure your favorite refreshing beverage and then stopped to think about just how many jobs went into creating an appliance that makes refreshing-beverage procurement so very easy?

We all understand on some level that a lot of work goes into all of our everyday appliances, but most of us probably don’t realize exactly how many people, companies, and suppliers really have to be involved to produce even the simplest of machines. (And we’re saying this as an integral part of that manufacturing process.)

The actual number of jobs behind your average refrigerator, oven, or microwave may be a little surprising. Let’s take a closer look at these jobs and see if there are some sectors, tasks, and industries behind your appliances that you never really thought about.

Who Is Behind Appliance Manufacturing?

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are at least 15 major job groups that are connected to household appliance manufacturing. If you break it down further, within those groups there are 186 different jobs that all contribute – either directly or indirectly – to the process of turning raw materials into usable appliances.

The 15 group of jobs includes:

• Management
• Business and financial operations
• Computer operations
• Engineering
• Life/physical/social sciences
• Legal services
• Art and design
• Healthcare practitioners
• Grounds maintenance
• Sales operations
• Office administration
• Construction and extraction
• Installation, maintenance and repair
• Production
• Transportation and material moving

Of course, several of these jobs fall right into our wheel house at Clark Rubber & Plastic, most of them under the “Production” group.

Our contribution to the development of consumer products includes metal workers and plastic workers, machine tool setters, operators, press machine setters and operators, grinding, polishing, casting, tool and die makers, custom rubber molders, rubber and plastic extrusion operators, inspectors, testers, and much more.

That sounds like a lot – and it is – but even we are just one part of the process.

While our plastic and rubber components are regularly found in automotive components, electronics, packaging materials, household products, and consumer appliances, we are still only providing one part of the puzzle.

There may be a lot of people behind these parts, but it is just the start. There are still people in logistics companies that need to make sure everything is getting where it needs to go. There are company administrators that make sure their assembly lines are never short of the products they need. And, of course, there are the designers who determine what they need and the manufacturers who bring it all together in the end.

From there, it’s all about the sales and transport people. It’s about taking the products that were made from the high-quality materials that we provide and getting them out onto shelves and into the hands of customers.

And even this step may have a lot more people involved with it than you may think.

Every Step Matters

With so many steps and jobs behind each and every appliance that goes to market, it’s critical to ensure that every company, supplier, or person is doing their part to deliver the highest quality possible.

It may just be another refrigerator to the average consumer, but it is the sum of a lot of parts coming together from a lot of places.

At Clark Rubber & Plastic, we are completely committed to our part of this process. Those gaskets and seals that we provide to different manufacturers may seem like a small thing, but they can have a huge impact on the final product that makes it into someone’s home.

Currently, we produce our rubber and plastic products in a 70,000 sq/ft manufacturing space that is fully stocked with some of the most advanced equipment available. On top of that, we have received UL certification of compliance for QMFZ2.E356537 Plastics – Component, which means that the plastic parts we ship out always meet the most stringent safety requirements.

So, the next time you go to the refrigerator to procure your favorite refreshing beverage, take a moment to consider all the work that made this simple activity possible.