The New Production Systems Debate

Abstract

Throughout the 1980s, claims that core sectors of industry have been dispensing with production strategies associated with mass production have been the focus of intense debate. It is argued by a number of protagonists that new production concepts are coming to redefine a vision of efficient and productive use of new technologies combined with new forms of work organization and management practices. Such concepts as that of flexible specialization are seen as transcending the engineering and design common sense that prevailed under the ‘Fordist’ system of mass production; they are therefore coming to be associated with ‘post-Fordism’. It is argued by others that the dominant features of production relations utilizing new technologies are work intensification, polarization of skills, and fragmentation of corporate structures into a core and a periphery. This is termed a ‘neo-Fordist’ production strategy. In these debates there is a confusion between concepts of production processes, strategies and paradigms allied to a common misconception that the rise of one paradigm must signal the fall of another. In this paper we propose a model of production systems that clearly distinguishes between these components of the system; we then characterize prevailing production systems as embodying mixes of Fordist, neo- and post-Fordist production paradigms; and we argue that the resolution between these competing paradigms will occur through the mediation of politics, industrial negotiation, and the operation of markets. Conceptual clarity is needed for strategies of intervention to be successful. Our approach is illustrated through case studies of development in CAD/CAM and award restructuring in Australia.