Life on the Line in Contemporary Manufacturing The Workplace Experience of Lean Production and the "Japanese" Model

by Delbridge, Rick

• ISBN13: 9780198292333
• ISBN10: 0198292333
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1998-06-25
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Much is stated and written about the new world of work but how much do we know about the contemporary workplace? What influence have Japanese management techniques (Just-in-Time Production and Total Quality Management, for example) had on the way work is organized in 'transplants', and morebroadly in other firms and sectors? Have the systems and mechanisms of control changed radically in recent years, or are they much the same as they have always been? Rick Delbridge sought an answer to these questions at first hand by working on the shopfloor in a Japanese consumer electronics transplant and a European automotive components supplier in order to witness and experience life on the line in contemporary manufacturing. His book is in a long tradition of ethnographic research in industrial sociology and management/labour studies. Not only does he offer rich empirical data on the lived reality of work and a management practice that may share little in common with that found in the textbooks; he also raises anumber of important issues about the best ways to understand the complex and changing nature of work. The book will be essential reading for those wishing to understand the reality of the contemporary workplace, the diffusion of Japanese management practices, and the various influences brought to bear on the organization of work.

Table of Contents

Figures	xii
Acronyms	xiii
Contemporary Manufacturing and Workplace Relations	1	(12)
Introduction	1	(2)
What's New about the `New' Workplace?	1	(1)
Continuity and Change	2	(1)
From and Content in Contemporary Manufacturing	3	(6)
JIT and TQM	3	(2)
Human Resource Management and Team Working	5	(1)
The `Japanese' Model	6	(1)
Workers in Contemporary Manufacturing	7	(2)
This Study	9	(4)
Researching the Shop-Floor: The Cases of Valleyco and Nippon CTV	13	(27)
Introduction	13	(1)
The Question of Understanding	13	(4)
Rejecting Positivism	14	(1)
Ethnography and the Place of Theory	15	(2)
Doing Ethnography	17	(4)
Bias in Ethnography	17	(2)
Building Relationships	19	(2)
Dealing with the Data	21	(2)
Research Sites	23	(15)
Valleyco	24	(1)
Plant, processes, and equipment	25	(5)
Work organization and plant structure	30	(1)
Valleyco world-wide	30	(1)
Nippon CTV	31	(1)
Plant, processes, and equipment	32	(4)
Work organization and plant structure	36	(1)
Nippon CTV world-wide	37	(1)
Summary	38	(2)
The Process of Management Control at Nippon CTV	40	(24)
Introduction	40	(1)
Aspects of Control	41	(2)
Process and Product Technology	41	(1)
Work Organization and Supervision	41	(2)
The Systems in Practice-Nippon CTV	43	(19)
Inducting the Workers	46	(5)
Leading a Team	51	(5)
The Management	56	(6)
Summary	62	(2)
The Process of Management Control at Valleyco	64	(24)
Introduction	64	(1)
The Systems in Practice-Valleyco	65	(22)
`Making the Number'	67	(8)
The Charge-hands	75	(4)
Who's in Charge?	79	(8)
Summary	87	(1)
What Do Workers Do? Patterns of Negotiated Order	88	(21)
Introduction	88	(1)
Working at Nippon CTV	88	(12)
Stuffing Boards	88	(6)
Clipping and Soldering	94	(4)
What Workers Don't Do	98	(2)
Working at Valleyco	100	(8)
All for One	101	(3)
And One for All?	104	(2)
What Workers Won't Do	106	(2)
Summary	108	(1)
Why Do Workers Do what they Do? Evidence of High Commitment	109	(21)
Introduction	109	(1)
For the Love of the Company?	110	(5)
Inter-Worker Relations?	115	(4)
Because they're Told to?	119	(6)
Because they Have to?	125	(3)
Summary	128	(2)
More than a Pair of Hands? Worker Involvement in what they Do and how they Do it	130	(20)
Introduction	130	(1)
The Extent of Worker Involvement	130	(7)
Promoting Participation?	137	(9)
Summary	146	(4)
The Role of Organized Labour	150	(28)
Introduction	150	(2)
The Unions at Valleyco	152	(8)
On the Shop-Floor	156	(4)
The Union at Nippon CTV	160	(14)
Company Member-Union Member	163	(3)
The Company Advisory Board	166	(8)
Summary and Implications	174	(4)
The Challenge for the Union Movement	175	(3)
Management and Labour on the `New' Shop-floor	178	(15)
Introduction	178	(1)
Marginalizing Uncertainty	179	(3)
Efficacy and Efficiency	182	(2)
Management Indulgence and the Limits to Control	184	(3)
Working Harder not Smarter	187	(2)
The Fragmentation of Labour	189	(2)
Form and Content Revisited	191	(2)
A Reappraisal of Contemporary Manufacturing and the `Japanese' Model	193	(22)
Introduction	193	(1)
Contrasting Workplace Relations	193	(3)
Towards an Explanation of Workplace Relations	196	(6)
Historical Context	196	(2)
Management and the System	198	(1)
Labour and the Unions	199	(1)
The Environmental Context	200	(2)
Reappraising Contemporary Manufacturing	202	(9)
The Transfer of the `Japanese' Model?	202	(3)
A Question of Sector?	205	(3)
The Transfer of Managerial Prerogative	208	(3)
Britain in the Global Economy: The Maquiladora Region of Europe?	211	(4)
Bibliography	215	(10)
Index	225