Book Note - Nicolas Hatzfeld

Transforming Automobile Assembly Experience in Automation And Work Organization

K. Shimokawa, U Jürgens, T. Fujimoto (Eds.)

The book is the result of two conferences held in Berlin in 1992 and in Tokyo in 1993. It brings together a great number of cases and conceptions, in particular between researchers and people working in firms, and between world regions. The debates are organized from two standpoints, from the point of view of systems and from a historical point of view. Among the authors there are numerous GERPISA members starting with the coordinators.

The first part takes up historical and conceptual aspects. Hsieh, Schmals and Seliger go over the history of assembly in Europe. The spread of robots is examined from a technical and economic angle (Whitney), and through the ways of distributing them (Tidd) in Great Britain and Japan. Fujimoto studies the different meanings the firms give to the automation ratios that they use.

The second part presents different approaches, based on ten study cases on Japanese and European firms. Most of these studies are written by company representatives who are in charge of this type of question. For Japan: Mitsubishi (Mishima) with the human dimension of technology and the activities of Kaizen; Toyota (Niimi and Matsudaira) and the efforts to improve work and to surmount the problems which came up at the end of the 1980ís and which persist; Mazda and modular assembly in diversified production (Kinutani); Honda organizational apprenticeship carried out through small volume production (Tanase, Matsuo and Shimokawa); finally, Nissan (Naitoh, Yamamoto, Kodama and Honda) and a flexible system of sheet metal production. For Europe: Opel Eisenach (Enderle); Volkswagen Brussels (Wilhelm), with the concepts of platform and module and their effects on assembly; the scope of the strategy of automation and making the Renault teams aware of their responsibility (Decoster, Freyssenet); Fiat, and apprenticeship with the passing of successive approaches to automation (Canto, Volpato); reflexive production in Volvo Uddevalla (Ellegard).

The problems and standpoints are tackled following a few main lines: quality of work, ergonomics, new forms of organization, symplifying design, recycling. Fujimoto makes use of Japanese strategies to improve the quality of work. Mac Duffie and Pil present the results of their international comparison on the theme of the book, in the framework of the IMVP programme. J¸rgens presents the trend in Europe as a sort of return to the principle of a classic line of assembly. Springer, then Kuhlmann and Schumann study the effects of group work. Freyssenet and Ellegard analyse the use of workersí skills, and define a sort of automation based on operators making the processes reliable. Berggren compares the lightened technology díUddevalla to the ´†high-tech†ª approach of the Japanese. Mishina presents a study on the salaried workersí quite critical representation of work in fixed structures especially on the computer guided carriers. Benders and Dankbar show the impact of Japanese principles on the Dutch industry. Finally, Seliger, Hentschel and Kriwet study the question of the recycling of cars.

The conclusion stresses the difference in the choices made in the West and in Japan throughout the 1980ís, discusses the efficiency of just-in-time and emphasizes the variety of the different assembly systems.

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