Book Notes - Nicolas Hatzfeld

Fordism transformed

This book, which takes up the studies presented at the Fuji Conference in 1994, shows that the production methods inaugurated by Ford could only have a successful development in their country of origin and a diffusion outside of it by transformation and adaptation to the national characteristics. Apart from the United States, seven other large carmaking countries are studied and analyzed in light of three major themes.

The different Ford systems: this first part studies the application and modification of the system up to the end of the 1970s according to three previously disassociated directions : lean production, mass production, and small batch production. Diversified mass production: despite the fact that Ford plants had been designed to produce a unique model, the next challenge was to maintain the speed of the chosen assembly line by introducing flexibility. Insofar as this aspect is concerned, the book accentuates the experimental role played by aeronautical production during the Second World War (Kazuo Wada) and by Toyota resorting to the assembly enterprises network (Haruhito Shiomi). The second direction is the development of transfer-machines. The book demonstrates the pioneer role played by Ford even in this realm and presents the installation directly on the traditional production lines of a rather rigid automization (David Hounshell). The third direction discusses the very contrasting extension and application of the Ford system to assembling small batches, by BLMC in England and Nissan in Japan (Timothy R. Whisler), and the birth of the flexible specialisation by Volvo in Sweden (Nils Kinch).

The second part studies the differencies in the production management, particularly quality control and parts production by suppliers. Indeed, progress in management techniques in these areas has allowed for the transition to diversified mass production. The book identifies two types of quality control which were grafted to the Fordist production methods. The first was that of Statistical Control, and we learn how it comes much later after the introduction of the Ford system in France (Patrick Fridenson). The second was the development of Total Quality Control in Japan, examined in the examples of Nissan and Toyota (Izumi Nonaka). The new Japanese supply systems are compared to traditional American methods by studying the hierarchical structure of suppliers in Japan as well as the development of concerted conception (Takahiro Fujimoto).

Finally, the book studies the relations between the different national Ford systems and the socio-economic frameworks. This raises the double question of, on the one hand, constraints place on the Ford system by socio-economic systems already in place, and on the other hand, the influence the Ford system had on these socio-economic systems. The book studies this double problem concerning the place of the relations between men and women in the managerial strategies towards the workers in the U.K. and the U.S. (Wayne A. Lewchuk), to the professional relations at Fiat (Stefano Musso), and to the role of the national political and economic system in the two Germanies and then in the Popular Republic of China (Werner Abelshauer, Chunli Lee).