Portsmouth's block mills were an early naval production line

Did Nelson's Royal Navy operate the world's first production line at the Portsmouth block mills?

It was a major early mechanized production line, but sequential mass production had ancient precedents, including Roman industrial sites.

The Royal Navy needed enormous numbers of standardized pulley blocks for its sailing fleet. Portsmouth's block mills mechanized successive operations so consistent parts moved through a coordinated manufacturing sequence. The site was an important early production line, although the underlying idea was not wholly unprecedented. Large Roman mills and industrial complexes demonstrate that organized sequential production had appeared in earlier societies even without modern machinery.