Automation, markets, and scale: can flexible niching modernize US manufacturing

Luria, Dan

doi:10.1080/758523671

Cited by 18 publications

(3 citation statements)

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“…Lean production in the auto industry not only uses flexible technologies, but forms a flexible work organization that maximizes employees initiative and flexibility to respond rapidly and flexibly to customer demand and to realize efficient mass production with high productivity and quality (Luria 1990). Flexible technologies include computer numerically controlled machines, flexible manufacturing systems, automated guided vehicle systems, programmable robotics, just-in-time delivery systems, and intercompany computer networks (Bergman, Feser, and Kaufmann 1997).…”

Section: Lean Production Labor Relations and Locationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, more recent studies have shown that flexible production is not necessarily associated with geographic proximity (Ansari and Modarress 1990;Ettlinger 1992;Mair 1992;Sadler 1994). Luria (1990) found that the number of single-focus plants, rather than "flexible" plants, is actually on the rise in the auto industry, thus predicting that dispersion, rather than reagglomeration, will accompany vertical disintegration to avoid unions. In spite of this new finding, these recent studies have also neglected the role of important actors, particularly unions, when analyzing lean production systems and industrial locations.…”

Section: Lean Production Labor Relations and Locationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Lean Production Systems, Labor Unions, and Greenfield Locations of the Korean New Auto Assembly Plants and Their Suppliers

Lee¹

2003

Economic Geography

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This article investigates why Korean auto assembly firms introduced “lean production systems” and chose greenfield locations as their new flexible production sites in the 1990s. I show that labor unions are important actors that directly affect firms‘ adoption and location strategies for lean production systems, by means of an analysis of Korean auto firms‘ managerial and locational strategies in response to adversarial labor relations. Korean firms‘ choice of greenfield locations for implementing lean production systems indicates that their desire to procure a malleable labor force is more important than proximity. Korean auto firms‘ decisions to implement Japanese‐style lean production systems and their choice of greenfield locations reflect conflicts between workers and managers. The findings in this article critique the existing literature in economic geography, which is devoid of discussions of workers and labor unions as active geographic agents, from the labor geography point of view.

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Section: Lean Production Labor Relations and Locationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Lean Production Labor Relations and Locationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lean Production Systems, Labor Unions, and Greenfield Locations of the Korean New Auto Assembly Plants and Their Suppliers

Lee¹

2003

Economic Geography

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“…45 For an ingenious but ultimately unsatisfying attempt to use existing data to test the flexible specialization hypothesis for the US manufacturing, see Luria (1989). Thus, for example, Luria uses share of value-added in manufacturing output (V Al M) as an indicator of product batch-sizes, on the assumption that V AIM rises proportionately as batch sizes fall, and explores its relationship with labor productivity (value-added per employee) for SIC industries over the past two decades.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%