Happy New Year, 2001 !

Ever since Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke's epic Space Odyssey, it has been impossible to devise another subtitle that can do justice to the symbolism with which the Year 2001 has become imbued. When this literary and film masterpiece was first released in 1968, its visionary's dream of an imaginary universe provided a stark contrast to the reality check placed on an entire generation's yearning for a universe of imagination. And now here we are, in the year 2001, and once again, as was the case during that other watershed year (1984), the real world does not correspond to what our beloved sci-fi writers had predicted. Manned space flight is still limited to orbiting the Earth, and the initial components of the space station which is just starting to be built look nothing like the majestic architecture of the giant wheel seen in 2001: A Space Odyssey. The GERPISA hasn't yet been turned into a Permanent Group for the Study of the Aerospace Industry and its Employees Ð and the automobile continues to play a preponderant role in the economic and social structuring of the world in which we live.

Of course, the automobile has gone through a great deal of change (in design and production methods) since 1968 Ð even though the product itself, above and beyond alterations in design, has basically kept the same appearance; still runs according to the same principles of motorisation; and continues to be assembled in factories that are organised by chain lines.

The greatest technical modifications have resulted from the impact that advances in the field of electronics have had on the product (top-of-the-range vehicles now incorporate calculating capabilities that are similar to those which had featured in the first Airbus planes); on design (Computer Assisted Design and other ICT developments), and on manufacturing process (i.e., the various stages of automation and robotisation). Yet it is difficult to see how a computer, be it remote or built-in, could fall victim to a computer dysfunction (as did HAL in Clarke/Kubrick's story), taking command of a car or factory and turning against its human masters. Moreover, it is highly unlikely that computing power will ever be limited by what the author Isaac Asimov called the 3 laws of robotics. Technical change is always slower than futurologists hope for, due to technical factors of course, but also because technical change is rooted in a social and historical context that cannot be simply summarised as a type of "psychohistory", defined by Asimov himself in his Foundation series as "the branch of mathematics that deals with the reactions of groups of humans" (sic). If indeed human beings are to be controlled, by the automobile (with its societal impact) or else by the firms constituting the automotive systems, this will not be due to machines or social laws. Control is a relative notion that materialises within the wider framework of human and social relationships.

This then is the complex reality of the change processes that the automobile sector is continually experiencing as a result of the actions of the executives, middle managers, engineers, workers and union members who work in it. And now that we have reached the year 2001, it is this reality that the GERPISA network's researcher members will have to deal with. As such, we will be working to identify and analyse those transformations that have already begun to take shape; and we will be trying to identify a range of possible scenarios for the future. Thanks to the European Commission's support for our CoCKEAS project, we have been able to organise a whole series of seminars enabling the network's members to meet, and debate, with one another: Lyon and Bordeaux in March, London in April, Paris in June, Venice in October, and finally, Berlin. You are invited to take part in these meetings, and we would particularly like you to come to the GERPISA's 9th international colloquium, Reconfiguring the Auto Industry: Mergers & Acquisitions, Alliances and Exit. The purpose of this colloquium will be to study the various ways in which the relationships between the different firms that make up the automobile sector are being reconfigured as actors attempt to improve their co-ordination of the different competencies, and types of knowledge, which firms and their employees possess. The "Call for Papers" is available on the GERPISA's website: www.gerpisa.univ-evry.fr

All in all, the coming year will be a studious one. GERPISA's scientific direction and its technical staff would both like to extend their best wishes to you for the new year 2001 - as well as for this new century and (dare we say) millennium. Indeed, let us all make a wish: from the year 2002 forwards, let us start to organise GERPISA network seminars and colloquiums outside of Europe. The conference organised at Salvador de Bahia (Brazil) in December 2000 showed us how to do this. This does not mean that we will be turning our backs on our European, and Parisian, heritage. One does not preclude the other - and there is no reason that we should not be striving, in the years to come, to help the GERPISA network to function in a more global fashion.

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