No abstract

This article reports on a detailed comparison of productivity, machinery and skills in matched samples of food manufacturing (biscuit) plants in Britain, Germany, the Netherlands and France. In comparing labour productivity levels, explicit account was taken of inter-country differences in the mix of product-qualities as well as differences in physical quantities produced per person-hour. Real ('quality-adjusted') productivity levels were highest in the German sample, an estimated 15 per cent on average above those in the Netherlands and France and about 40 per cent higher than in Britain. International differences in quality—as measured by value added per ton—were found to be at least as important as differences in crude tonnage produced per person-hour. The pattern o f productivity advantage could not be attributed to inter-country variation in the age and sophistication of capital equipment. However, there were important differences in workforce skill levels which could be linked to both relative productivity performance and the predominant choice of product strategy in each country. For example, in the German industry the mix of initial and continuing training received by employees supports a successful strategy of rapid growth in small-and naedium-batch production of elaborate, high value added biscuits which would be hard for the other three countries' indus-tries—and particularly Britain—to emulate. In Britain the greatest success is achieved by large highly-autonzated plants engaged in the bulk production of relatively uncomplicated varieties of biscuit. Given the present structure of work force skills in Britain, it is understandable that—as in many other branches of manufacturing—British biscuit producers tend to specialise in relatively low value added goods. However, the study suggests that some of the potential economies of large-scale production are lost due to excessive rates of emergency downtime and the limitations of narrowly-trained employees.

This study compares samples of matched plants in Britain and Germany engaged in the manufacture of women's outerwear; it follows earlier matched plant studies, also published in the National Institute Economic Review, which examined matched plants in metalworking and furniture manufacture in these two countries. German clothing manufacturers specialise in high-fashion items produced in great variety of which a high proportion is exported at high unit prices; the typical British manufacturer concentrates on more standardised items produced in long runs and is consequently more vulnerable to competition from lower-cost producers in developing countries. The study examines the contribution of machinery, new technology and skills to differ ences in clothing productivity in the two countries. A final section discusses future trends in the industry in the light of the 1992 proposals for a Single European Market.

Following previous comparisons by the National Institute of matched samples of manufacturing plants in Britain and Germany, this study applies similar methods to a branch of the services sector namely, the hotel industry. The objectives were to obtain measures of average productivity-differences between the countries in hotel-work, and to examine to what extent differences in equipment and training are important contributory factors. The paper discusses implications for schooling and training policies.

In this article we present a new experimental paradigm: comparative visual search. Each half of a display contains simple geometrical objects of three different colors and forms. The two display halves are identical except for one object mismatched in either color or form. The subject's task is to find this mismatch. We illustrate the potential of this paradigm for investigating the underlying complex processes of perception and cognition by means of an eye‐tracking study. Three possible search strategies are outlined, discussed, and reexamined on the basis of experimental results. Each strategy is characterized by the way it partitions the field of objects into “chunks.” These strategies are: (i) Stimulus‐wise scanning with minimization of total scan path length (a “traveling salesman” strategy), (ii) scanning of the objects in fixed‐size areas (a “searchlight” strategy), and (iii) scanning of object sets based on variably sized clusters defined by object density and heterogeneity (a “clustering” strategy). To elucidate the processes underlying comparative visual search, we introduce besides object density a new entropy‐based measure for object heterogeneity. The effects of local density and entropy on several basic and derived eye‐movement variables clearly rule out the traveling salesman strategy, but are most compatible with the clustering strategy.