Ordnance Factories Board

Ordnance Factories Board (OFB) (Hindi: आयुध निर्माणी बोर्ड; IAST: Āyudh nirmāṇī borḍ) consisting of the Indian Ordnance Factories (भारतीय आयुध निर्माणियाँ; Bhāratīya āyudh nirmāṇiyān), is an industrial organisation, functioning under the Department of Defence Production of Ministry of Defence, Government of India. It is engaged in research, development, production, testing, marketing and logistics of a comprehensive product range in the areas of air, land and sea systems. OFB comprises forty-one Ordnance Factories, nine Training Institutes, three Regional Marketing Centres and four Regional Controllerates of Safety, which are spread all across the country.

OFB is the world's largest government operated production organisation, and the oldest organisation run by the Government of India. It has a total workforce of about 164,000. It is often called the "Fourth Arm of Defence", and the "Force Behind the Armed Forces" of India. It is amongst the top fifty defence equipment manufacturers in the world. Its total sales were at $2.7 billion (₹16,246 crores) in 2011-12. Every year, 18 March is celebrated as the Ordnance Factories' Day in India.

Ordnance

Ordnance may refer to:

Military

Other

See also

Aircraft ordnance

Aircraft ordnance or ordnance (in the context of military aviation) is weapons (e.g. bombs, missiles, rockets and gun ammunition) used by aircraft. The term is often used when describing the weight of air-to-ground weaponry that can be carried by an aircraft or the weight that has been dropped. Aircraft ordnance also includes air-to-air, anti-ship and anti-submarine weapons.

Some aircraft types can carry a wide variety of ordnance - for example the Fairchild AU-23 Peacemaker could use forward-firing gun pods, 500 and 250 pound bombs, napalm units, cluster bomb units, flares, rockets, smoke grenades and propaganda leaflet dispensers.

Ordnance can be carried in a bomb bay or hung from a hardpoint.

For many weapons there is a limit to the length of time they can be flown (e.g. because of vibration damage); after this their safety or effectiveness is not guaranteed. This can be a problem if weapons designed for high intensity conflict are carried on multiple missions in a long counter-insurgency campaign.

Factory

A factory (previously manufactory) or manufacturing plant is an industrial site, usually consisting of buildings and machinery, or more commonly a complex having several buildings, where workers manufacture goods or operate machines processing one product into another.

Factories arose with the introduction of machinery during the Industrial Revolution when the capital and space requirements became too great for cottage industry or workshops. Early factories that contained small amounts of machinery, such as one or two spinning mules, and fewer than a dozen workers have been called "glorified workshops".

Most modern factories have large warehouses or warehouse-like facilities that contain heavy equipment used for assembly line production. Large factories tend to be located with access to multiple modes of transportation, with some having rail, highway and water loading and unloading facilities.

Factories may either make discrete products or some type of material continuously produced such as chemicals, pulp and paper, or refined oil products. Factories manufacturing chemicals are often called plants and may have most of their equipment – tanks, pressure vessels, chemical reactors, pumps and piping – outdoors and operated from control rooms. Oil refineries have most of their equipment outdoors.

Factory (trading post)

A factory (from Latin facere, meaning "to do"; Portuguese feitoria, Dutch factorij, French factorerie, German Faktorei) was an establishment for factors or merchants carrying on business in foreign lands. Initially established in parts of Medieval Europe, factories eventually spread to other parts of the world in the wake of European trading ventures and, in many cases, were precursor to colonial expansion. Factories could serve simultaneously as market, warehouse, customs, defense and support to navigation or exploration, headquarters or de facto government of local communities. The head of the factory was the chief factor.

In North America, this trading formula was adopted by colonists and later Americans to exchange goods with local non-Western societies, especially in Native American Indian territory. In that context, these establishments were often called trading posts.

European medieval factories

Although European colonialism traces its roots from the Classical Era – Phoenicians, Greeks, and Romans established colonies around the Mediterranean – and almost every major city of the world once started as a trading post (Venice, Naples, Rotterdam, New York, Shanghai, Lisbon, etc.), "factories" were a unique institution born in medieval Europe.

Factory (band)

Factory was a band from Stockholm in Sweden, active between 1978–1982, scoring chart successes in Sweden during the late 1970s and 1980s.

Factory broke through in Sweden with the 1978 single Efter plugget 1978. The single was followed up by the album Factory. The band toured the Nordic Region in the late 1970s and early 1980s and also released the 1980 album Factory II.

During the 1990s, the band was reunited temporary touring with, among others, Magnum Bonum, Attack and Snowstorm.

Members

Discography

Studio albums

Compilation albums

Singles

Maxisingles 12"

References