The Tobacco Industry An excellent example of manufacturing in business is the tobacco industry. During the earlier part of this century, tobacco was a hand picked and manufactured crop. Thousands of people were employed by the tobacco industry and factories were all over the south. The cigarette-making process, once done entirely by hand, either in these factories or by the consumer, is today fully automated. Automation is a part of the cigarette process from the first step to the last. From inspecting to wrapping, machines do the jobs more efficiently. A line of machines in a factory produces from 8,000 to 14,000 cigarettes a minute. D