Manufacturing or service sector

Inside a much longer item about The quiet rebirth of the manufacturer: Jonathan Guthrie talks about the blurred line between manufacturing and service sector industries.

"In time, the negative connotations of the word “manufacturing” may simply be bypassed because the term itself is obsolete. Rolls-Royce, for example, is these days primarily a service business that happens to make some rather good jet engines. At the other end of the size scale, Powerlase, a West Sussex business I visited on Monday, designs and markets high-tech laser systems. Which, incidentally, it builds itself."