Flexibility at Work: Critical Developments in the International Automobile Industry

204 Pages·2008·18.788 MB·English

by  Valeria Pulignano, Paul Stewart, Andy Danford, Mike Richardson (eds.)

Flexibility at Work
Flexibility at Work
Critical Developments in the International
Automobile Industry
Edited by
Valeria Pulignano
Paul Stewart
Andy Danford
and
Mike Richardson
* Selection and editorial content © Valeria Pulignano, Paul Stewart, Andy
Danford and Mike Richardson 2008
Individual chapters © contributors 2008
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2008 978-1-4039-0041-8
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ISBN 978-1-349-50733-7 ISBN 978-0-230-58193-7 (eBook)
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Flexibility at work : critical developments in the international automobile
industry I Valeria Pulignano ... [et al.].
p.cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Automobile industry and trade-Management. 2. Industrial relations.
3. Automobile industry and trade-Production control. 4. Automobile
industry workers. I. Pulignano, Valeria, 1968-
HD9710.A2F59 2008
629.222068'5-dc22
2008016420
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 08
Transferred to Digital Printing 2011
Contents
List of Figures vii
List of Tables ix
Notes on the Contributors xi
Introduction: 'Flexibility' at Work. Critical Developments
in the International Automobile Industry
Valeria Pulignano, Paul Stewart, Andy Danford and
Mike Richardson
Part I Developments in the International Car Industry: 15
The Comparative Perspective
1 Bureaucracy Transcended? New Patterns of 17
Employment Regulation and Labour Control in the
International Automotive Industry
Valeria Pulignano and Paul Stewart
2 Lean Production and Quality of Working Life on the Shop 45
Floor: The Experience of British and Italian Car
Workers
Andy Danford, Mike Richardson, Valeria Pulignano and
Paul Stewart
3 Lean Production: The Original Myth Reconsidered 83
Dan Coffey and Carole Thornley
Part II Developments in the International Car 105
Industry: The National-based Perspective
4 Scope for Policymaking in a Globalised Economy: 107
The Case of Car Assembly in Belgium
Geert Van Hootegem and Rik Huys
5 From Lean Production to Mass Customisation: Recent 127
Developments in the Australian Automotive Industry
Richard Cooney and Graham Sewell
v
vi Contents
6 Labour Relations in the Modular System: Ten Years of 151
the VW Experience at Resende, Brazil
jose Ricardo Ramalho and Elaine fvfarlova V. Francisco
7 The Quest for Flexibility in the Mexican Auto Parts 173
Industry: Three Tales from a Multinational Company
Christian Levesque
Index 195
List of Figures
3.1 IMVP survey analysis-a stylised critique 88
3.2 Overtime growth curves 90
vii
List of Tables
1.1 Outsourcing at Mirafiori and Rivalta plants 23
1.2 Contracting out in Renault Sandouville 27
1.3 The 'modular consortium' at Resende 30
2.1 Attributes of survey respondents 54
2.2 Workers' assessment of consultation and respect 56
at work
2.3 Management performance scale 58
2.4 Workers' assessment of union performance at work 59
2.5 Union performance scale 60
2.6 Workers' assessment of workload 62
2.7 Workers' views on maintaining the pace of production 64
2.8 Management surveillance 66
2.9 Workers' views on job influence and autonomy 67
2.10 Employee autonomy scale 69
2.11 Workers' evaluation of work demands 70
2.12 Workers' evaluation of the impact of work demands 72
2.13 Workers' experience of bullying at work 73
2.14 Workplace stress scale 74
2.15 Correlations between selected workload/work 75
environment and stress variables
2.16 Regression of workplace stress scale on plant, 77
workload and other work environment determinants
3.1 A simple assembly model classification - stoppages 95
and throughput times
4.1 Support measures agreed in the task force industry 119
ix
Notes on the Contributors
Dan Coffey is Senior Lecturer in Economics at Leeds University
Business School, where he was until recently Director for all economics
related MA Programmes. His research interests span organisation and
operations in manufacturing industries, political economy and
industrial sociology. His recent projects include a book on produc
tion myths and the world car industry, published as The Myth of
Japanese Efficiency: the World Car Industry in a Globalizing Age (Edward
Elgar, 2006). He publishes in a wide range of journals and is the co
editor (with Carole Thornley) of Industrial and Labour Market Policy
and Performance: Issues and Perspectives (Routledge, 2003) and (with
David Bailey and P.R. Tomlinson) of Crisis or Recovery in Japan: State
and Industrial Economy (Edward Elgar, 2007). He is active in associ
ations which include the European Network for Industrial Policy
(EUNIP).
Richard Cooney works in the Department of Management at
Monash University in Australia. His research focuses upon the
organisation of work, employee skill formation and the implemen
tation of new production practices. Richard is a specialist in the
automotive industry having recently completed a large project for
the Ford Motor Company of Australia. He has also recently com
pleted a study of the Australian Vocational Education and Training
(VET) system in an international comparative context. Richard
is currently editing a book examining trade union involvement
in VET policy formation and he is co-convenor of the Inter
national Conference on Training, Employability and Employment
(CTEE).
Andy Danford is Professor of Employment Relations at the
Centre for Employment Studies Research, University of the West
of England. He has published books and articles on the subjects
of lean production, the high performance workplace and union
renewal strategies.
xi
xii Notes on the Contributors
Elaine Marlova V. Francisco is Associate Professor and Researcher
of the Labour Studies Program at the University of Rio de janeiro
State (UERJ), Brazil. Her main research interests have been related to
the sociology of work, workers organizations at the shopfloor and
trade unionism.
Geert Van Hootegem is Professor at the K.U. Leuven, Centre for
Sociological Research (CeSO), (Belgium). He conducts research on
new production concepts, flexibility, lean production, quality of
working life, new technology, socio-technical system design, inte
gral organisational renewal, team based work, the information
society and globalisation. He is currently involved in fundamental
and applied research projects, such as: EMERGENCE, focusing on
plausible relocation movements that were caused by technological
factors in the eEconomy (in the service sector); STILE, focusing on
Statistics and Indicators on the Labour Market in the eEconomy;
Kerosine, about the Knowledge Economy and Regional Strategies for
Organisational and Sustainable Innovation; and a project on Spatial
Data Infrastructure and Public Sector Innovation. He is a member of
the Editorial Board of the academic journal'Work, Employment and
Society'.
Rik Huys is senior researcher at the Higher Institute for Labour
Studies (HIVA) at the Katholieke Universiteit of Leuven (Belgium).
He attained a PhD in 2000 at the Faculty of Social Sciences of the
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven with a dissertation on 'The structure
of the division of labour in Belgian car assembly plants'. His research
relates to the fields of work organisation, quality of working life and
surveys on these issues. He is currently involved in the European
research project, WORKS that aims at improving our understanding
of the changes taking place in work in the knowledge economy.
Christian Levesque is a Professor of Industrial Relations,
Department of Human Resource Management, at HEC Montreal. His
research focuses on union revitalisation, workplace innovation and
the social regulation of multinationals. He is Co-director of the Inter
University Center on Globalisation and Work (CRIMT) a research
network that seeks to understand the social dynamics of institutions
and capabilities building in a global era.