> Many factories are only used 8 hours a day despite the high costs
I don't have a lot of direct experience but my dad worked in factories most of my childhood. Every single one ran nearly 24/7. Was that a chance occurrence of the types of factories we had near where I grew up?
The only confirmed example I know of is Harley-Davidson, roughly during the boom of cruiser motorcycles (1995-2010?): They only ran one shift, but the PR of waiting lists and extremely high instant resale prices made the choice appealing in the face of the capital costs.
Are you asking if all factories are like the ones that you grew up near?
My understanding is that manufacturing tends to be the way you describe. I'd be surprised if that held true for all sorts of factories, especially in chemical production. Just a guess but I think paying chemical engineers for overnight shifts might cut into profits somewhat
EDIT: another comment sparked a memory, I'm thinking specifically of batch operators.
Stopping and restarting chemical plants is usually horribly expensive. Most of them run 24/7, non-stop, even if the companies have negative profit on some of the products.
Usually there will be only a single engineer or maybe two on staff for the night shift. But paying regular operating staff an additional 50% night shift bonus to keep the factory running is very often worth the price.
The night shift extra is usually much closer to 50 cents than 50 percent. A lot of places even give the night shift the same pay, especially when the labor market is favorable to employers.
I don't have a lot of direct experience but my dad worked in factories most of my childhood. Every single one ran nearly 24/7. Was that a chance occurrence of the types of factories we had near where I grew up?