GERPISA and IMVP When Parallel Lines Meet !

Initially defined to IMVP sponsors as an associated network, GERPISA was then able to present the main results of our First and Second Program to IMVP sponsors as well as other network researchers. Though the perspective we have concerning the plurality of industrial models and the diversity in firms' globalization approaches came as somewhat of a shock to those who gave birth to the notion of "lean production", it nevertheless captured our audience, both automobile construction representatives and researchers alike. Their interest represents an evolution in a certain mindset, most probably due to a changing relationship between countries and automobile firms during the 1990s. Indeed, the results of our research offer a new tool towards better understanding these changes.

Consequently,  conditions now seem to be favorable towards the  officialization of links and exchange between GERPISA and  he  IMVP, following  twenty years of parallel activity. Both  networks were  created  at approximately the same time, in  1980 and 1981. Both  quickly  learned of the other's existence and activity, and  attempts were made to meet. However, objectives, hypotheses, and functioning methods were so divergent that  any  type of collaboration did not seem possible.  A second attempt was made around 1986, but also failed.
The international impact of the IMVP book, The Machine that Changed the World, and the intellectual challenge it represented for GERPISA's own orientations, served - as we all know - as the basis of our "Emergence of new industrial models" program, as well as the transition of our network from a national to an international one in 1992. During a trip to Boston, we informed the IMVP of these initiatives and of our desire to exchange information. It was as if we were David trying to carry on a conversation on an equal basis with Goliath! Since that period, informal links between researchers of the two networks, facilitated by conferences organized Ulrich Jürgens, Koichi Shimokawa, and Giuseppe Volpato (in Berlin, Tokyo, and Venice, respectively) on the theme of the automation of the automobile assembly line allowed for intellectual exchange and fruitful debate.  Quite a few IMVP representatives between 1985 and 1994 have become consultants. The Program Direction has been entirely transformed, and it appears that the network's researchers have become more concerned with orienting their work towards a more "research" rather than "benchmarking" direction.

The present IMVP director, Joël Clark, has suggested a number of collaboration projects: creating an association of our two networks, presenting research results at both of our annual conferences, exchange of documents, possible collaboration in certain areas and shared publications, etc. At present, we are exploring these various proposals with the Secretary and International Committee of Program Direction, before submitting a sort of "collective convention" project to our IMVP colleagues.

The year 2000 will be the tenth anniversary of the publication of The Machine that Changed the World.  GERPISA's next annual encounter in June 2000 proposes to analyze changes underway over the last ten years, and how they influence our vision of the past as well as practical and scientific perspectives of the future. Indeed, the conference could revolve around the theme of the transition from "the machine that changed the world" to "the world that changed the machine"! Part of the conference will be devoted to hosting invited speakers, members or not of GERPISA, and the other portion will be devoted to papers given by our network's members. Please find enclosed a call for papers. We encourage all of you to participate!