Shifting economies: From craft production to flexible systems and software factories

Abstract

This article discusses the evolution of production systems from craft or job shops to conventional mass production and then to flexible design and production systems. The major argument is that factory concepts and technologies have been evolving in two directions: First, they have become more versatile in the variety of products they can produce, resulting from innovations in production and design technology as well as management techniques. Second, companies have extended factory-like tools and techniques backward toward design operations, gradually bringing more discipline, automation, and thus efficiency into the realm of engineering work, including the relatively new field of computer programming. The result, in both manufacturing and design, has been a shift from simple scale economies, as in conventional mass production, to scope economies --efficiencies gained in the design and production of multiple products. n examination of how flexible-factory tools and techniques have been applied in large-scale software development illustrates these trends.

Service operations strategy, flexibility and performance in engineering consulting firms

“…In some other cases, these bene®ts are reduced to workforce versatility (Walton and Susman, 1987). Moreover, some authors maintain that¯exibility is always bene®cial while some others af®rm that it can even be harmful in some cases (Cusumano, 1988;Gaimon and Singhal, 1992;Tombak, 1988). Such discussion reinforces the role of the multidimensional character of¯exibility.…”

An Empirical Study of Manufacturing Flexibility in Printed Circuit Board Assembly

“…The third group deals with historical and economic analyses of flexibility, and tends to view flexibility as an attribute of importance for the competitiveness of a firm, industry, or country. Scholars in this group come usually from the social sciences, and include Piore and Sabel (1984), Harrigan (1984), Storper and Christopherson (1986), Adler (1985), Womack, Jones, andRoos (1990), andCusumano (1992). A fourth group consists of literature reviews or strategic frameworks that analyze flexibility, including Sethi and Sethi (1990) and Suarez, Cusumano, and Fine (1991).…”

Hacia la universidad colaborativa. Promoviendo un debate sobre el modelo organizativo académico

“…El modelo burocrático operando dentro de la lógica del mercado ha mostrado su capacidad para alcanzar unos niveles de producción más elevados, unos estándares de calidad mayores y más constantes, un enorme ahorro en cuanto a costes y un mayor grado de innovación en comparación con el modelo tradicional al que sustituían. Con el tiempo esta lógica administrativa se ha extendido incluso a las profesiones más técnicas e intensivas en conocimiento, tales como las ingenierías (Layton 1971) o la informática (Cusumano 1992).…”