The Biltmore Winery, for example, relies on sophisticated computer-driven machinery to assess the quality of its production and to track its inventory. There, a football field of robots and assorted computer-controlled machinery produces one of the world's largest streams of Dacron yarn. Often the only person visible is an attendant standing over a blinking computer display. The staff today is half of what it was a decade ago. Down the road in Craven County, the Weyerhaeuser Corporation relies just as heavily on remote sensing microprocessors to adjust flood gates that control the flow of nitrogen and phosphorus runoff from its tree plantations into the Neuse River.
Technology also rules once the logs reach the modern saw mill.
Jordan Lumber Company in Mt. Gilead uses technology to make efficient use of every log that enters its yard. Even the fate of turkeys is shaped by technology. In Carolina Turkeys' enormous plant in Mt. Olive, microprocessors direct the journey of millions of turkeys each year as they move from slaughter to packing. For food safety reasons, keeping track of those turkeys is essential in the event that some of them have to be recalled. More than equipment, however, is washing up on American shores.