Industrial design is a process of design applied to products that are to be manufactured through techniques of mass production. A key characteristic is that design precedes manufacture: the creative act of determining and defining a product's form and features takes place in advance of the physical act of making a product, which consists purely of repeated, often automated, replication. This distinguishes industrial design from craft-based design, where the form of the product is determined by the product's creator largely concurrent with the act of its creation.