The Organization of the Labor Process in Fordism and Post Fordism - Essay Example

What are the main differences in the organization of the labor process in Faradism and Post-Faddism? Use a case study to explain your answer. Introduction Henry Ford (1863-1947) the well-known industrialist is considered as the inventor of Fordism. His industries were models for several other industries in the world. He pioneered a manufacturing method that made it feasible to produce a huge number of similar goods within a small time. The efficiency of production increased and this was a successful change for the effectiveness of manufacturing products with less expenditure. Fordism has to be perceived as a broader notion on fiscal and social matters (Beek, et al. N.D). The era of Post Fordism was a response to Fordism. The job in the industrial units wasn’t very encouraging for the employees. The manufacturing procedure was not appealing for the workforce. Scholars were researching regarding innovative techniques which could raise the wealth and could build their nation stronger. Post-Fordism is founded on the supremacy of a flexible and enduringly inventive model of growth and it is based on flexible production, growing revenues for capable employees (Jessop, N.D.). This essay explains the various features of Fordism and post-Fordism Fordism Fordism is a model of Taylorism. Friedrich Taylor (1856-1915) talked regarding the significance of a balanced and capable organization of corporations by consistency of the manufacturing procedure. In Taylorism the executives had less understanding regarding the practical work involved in the production; consequently the executives had to be acquainted with how the manufacturing was planned. Taylor stated that the potential thinking ought to be separated from the shop and placed in the planning department giving responsibility to executive to work stringently executive in its character. The executives had to fix on what the employees ought to perform. This is the real meaning of Taylorism: the partition of thinking and doing. While an employee thought regarding his action he accustomed to it and tries to improve it. Human and machine has to be one with no sentiment for the employee that he is a kind of a robot. The scheduling department required to have a capable manufacturing procedure although workers wanted to have an excellent payment, not so much working hours and a good work environment. Ford accepted the significance of the relation involving employee and employer. He set up an eight-hour workday and offered improved payment for enhanced production. However these developments were prepared on a financial base to create improved earnings of labor (Beek, et al. N.D). Henry Ford was an accepted symbol of the change from farming to an industrial, mass production, mass consumption financial system. Ford was the innovative strength in the wake of the development to supremacy of the automobile industry, the worlds prevalent manufacturing bustle. Mass production is the technique of manufacturing goods in great quantities at low cost per unit. However mass production, even though allowing lower prices, does not mean low-quality production. In its place, mass-produced goods are consistent by means of exactness-manufactured, identical parts. The mass production procedure is distinguished by automation to attain high quantity, complex materials flow through different phases of manufacturing, cautious management of quality standards, and minute splitting up of labor. The American automobile producer Henry Ford intended an assembly line that started function in 1913. The outcome was a notable drop of manufacturing time for magneto flywheels from 20 minutes to five minutes. This achievement inspired Ford to apply the method to frame assembly. With the old method, by which parts were moved to a fixed assembly point, 12 1/2 man-hours were necessary for each frame. Using a rope to pull the frame past stockpile of parts, Ford reduced the labor time to six man-hours. With modifications a chain drive to control assembly-line movement, fixed locations for the employees, and work stations designed for ease and comfort - assembly time cut down to 93 man-minutes in April 1914. Fords techniques radically abridged the price of a private vehicle, affordable for the common man. Fords impressive achievements compelled both his opponents and his parts suppliers to begin his method, and the assembly line spread through a huge part of U.S. industry, fetching large increases in production and resulting expert employees to be changed with less expensive inexpert labor. Since the speed of the assembly line was managed by machines, the temptation cropped up to speed up the machines, forcing the employees to keep up. Such speedups became a serious point of conflict linking labor and administration, at the same time as the dull, cyclic nature of several assembly-line works bored workers, dipping their output. Fords major aids to mass production/consumption were in the sphere of method engineering. The feature of his system was consistency - standardized parts, standardized manufacturing procedures, and an easy to fabricate standard product. Finally, Ford completed all he desired for his cars from the raw materials on to the finished product. He vertically integrated for two causes. First of all, he had faultlessly accomplished mass production methods and could attain sizeable wealth by doing the whole lot himself. Further, given the information dispensation abilities of the time, plus Fords uncertainty regarding accounting and finance, direct management might more proficiently manage the flow of raw materials and parts through the production procedure than laissez-faire dealings (Chandler 1977). Certainly, entire vertical integration needed the institution of huge numbers of actions and workers. The replica for Fords administrative method was for the most part made similar to the Prussian Bureaucracy under Heinrich von Stein, Gerhard von Scharnhorst, August von Gneisenau, and Helmuth von Moltke all through the 19th century. Their managerial modernization incorporated complete centralized materials supplies and logistical scheduling, manage by regulations, normal operating measures, and the merit principle, practical administrative plan, breakdown of jobs to their simplest parts, and sequential dealing. The Prussian organizational method was extensively followed by modern organizations and in most cases these institutions did well in the market. The Prussian managerial method made large, multifaceted institutions professional; it as well obviously made them unavoidable. Large organizations could take full benefit of the Prussian managerial method as they could only manage to pay for considerable amounts of capital to gather and process magnitudes of statistics for top executive to use to organize activities and assign capital. Hence, for a long time it seemed that bigger organizations were necessarily better. And, there seemed to be no natural limits to this conclusion. The scheduling and managing method used by the General military administration under Ludendorff to organize Germanys assets in World War I, the Kriegwirtschaftsplan, was almost the same as Fords managerial method. The central scheduling method, Gosplan, followed by the Soviet Union to execute its long-term guidelines and deliberate plans was just a version of the Kriegwirtschaftsplan. In fact, Lenin unambiguously joined the two basics of Fords method in his explanation of socialism that is Soviets plus Prussian railway management plus American industrial organization. Fords regular product and his straight scheduling and managing method had been made outdated in the 1930s, by modernism in selling and organization at General Motors. These improvements were executed by Alfred P. Sloan, who is famous for the multi-product organizational structure, where every major working division serves a separate product market. As Sloan taken the charge of GM in the early 1920s, it was a loose alliance of car and car-parts companies. Sloan relocated the car companies to make a five-model product range from Chevrolet to Cadillac and recognized a completely decentralized managerial control formation (willamette.edu., N.D) The dynamics of Fordism is strongly linked to the form and function of the Keynesian welfare state, which consecutively has significant inference for the dynamic of Fordism. In the system Fordism the state administer the income relation and labour market strategies and directs the total demand, in this fashion it assists to balance the supply and demand. Furthermore by holding out the promise of leveling financial swings and protecting steady progress, the state as well allowed Fordist firms to make safe growing proceeds to scale. Added to this, the state invested in infrastructure and encouraged fordist mass expenditure through accommodation and transportation strategies. In addition the supremacy of fordist mode of expansion facilitated the state to connect the interests of planned resources and labour in a programme of total employment and social wellbeing. Several of the welfare strategies in 1960s and 1970s were promoted by the growth of Fordist method, with its urbanization and bureaucratism. Complete employment is habitually measured to be the foremost goal of Keynesian welfare nation, and together with the Fordism and the post-war bang facilitated in attaining it (Jessop, N.D.). Post Fordism To give good reason for the naming of ‘Post-Fordism’ there has to be insinuations that Post-Fordism has evidently appeared to form the trend initiating within Fordism, however still has symbols of critical break with it. The era of Post Fordism was a response to Fordism. The change from Fordism to Post Fordism was not quick and not that Fordism entirely gone when Post Fordism came in. Fordism was not very common any longer in the Western countries, in the seventies of the last century. The financial system wasn’t progressing so much as in the first years after the Second World War and there were a number of reviews on the production techniques which typify the phase of Fordism. The job in the industrial units wasn’t very encouraging for the employees. The manufacturing procedure was not appealing for the workforce. Scholars were researching regarding innovative techniques which could raise the wealth and could build there nation stronger. The two important words ‘diversity and flexibility’ are the column of Post Fordism. As the expression ‘Post Fordism’ was borne the social order was altering and in western capitalist culture, welfare offered populace the potential to travel, to consume and so on. The standard of living has gone up and creating wealth and producing a lot of goods has not become the major concern in the post war ages. The natural surroundings were becoming increasingly significant for several people (Beek, et al. N.D). The Post Fordism approach is based on the truth that it’s noteworthy that industries are making more than one product. Such as, it’s necessary to build not only T-Fords however as well escort or mustang and so on. Integration is as well a major thing in the period of Post Fordism. Employees can make more than one product consequently they can do diverse things in the production procedure. As people get more incorporated in the method of making a product they can recognize themselves further with the product. Since they will put more effort and are more pleased. Joint attempt became more significant and a novel event JIT, Just in Time, was established. The principle of JIT is to reduce record at every phase of the production procedure. The JIT standard necessitates that parts reach ‘just in time’ for their use in the production procedure. Hence the communication and infrastructure required to be ideal. Manufacturing product was ordered by the structure of supply and demand. Basing on a great demand for commodities, many products were made. The outcome of the fresh methods was that employees and administrators work more intimately and not on the traditional, hierarchical and Fordist way Growing flexibility was being seen as the important element for a victorious Post Fordism age. One linked to the constituent above was additional flexibility in labor. The new idea was that an employee in the industry can work at more areas in the production line. Diverse places were used for the manufacturing and parts of the production were relocated to the border. Foreign venture in cheap labor areas became increasingly accepted. There was an increase of less labor-intensive high-technological production. To maximize the production means that not only manufacturing as many products as possible is significant and as well the effects on the biological surroundings are necessary. People understand that a healthy atmosphere is essential to have chances in the future. Initially the changeover from Fordism to Post Fordism was necessary for the industry and for industrialization. However the method had pressure on the entire culture incorporated the industry. Controls of Post Fordism were and are for example established in city planning (Beek, et al. N.D). As a labor progression post-Fordism can be explained as a flexible production prices supported on flexible methods and a suitably flexible labor force. Its central mechanism is microelectronics information and communications technologies. Post-Fordism is founded on the supremacy of a flexible and enduringly inventive model of growth and it is based on flexible production, growing revenues for capable employees and the service class and improved earnings on the basis of technical and other modernism. In addition post-fordist growth will be leaning towards global demand, not too much on order within a nation. Post-Fordism is driven by added demand than supply. Competition will affect features for instance better quality and performance for individual products and receptiveness to consumers. The three major motivating forces following the surfacing of Post-Fordism are the increasing of innovative technologies, globalization and the pattern change from Fordism to post-Fordism. The struggle with the recently industrialized countries (NICs) has enforced the superior capitalist financial systems to concentrate in the latest core technologies. As such the nation has significance in encouraging the technical growth in order that as many firms as possible can profit from it. In addition nation must alter industrial support away from declining sectors to fresh sectors. The new model of post-fordism means that the main financial roles of nations are redefined and nations are alert on the supply-side problem of global competitiveness and endeavor to lower welfare strategy to the demands of flexibility (Jessop, N.D.). In the 1970s the elevated price of primary materials, the oil crisis and the economic storm connected to the flat rate of the dollar would all describe the fresh outline for the reform of the international market (Bologna 1974). The crisis of governments with Keynesian strategies was convened in diverse nations by a method of concurrent focus and delegation that intended to disjoint the class composition of the big factory, to decrease the expenditure of labor and the responsibility of social wellbeing and public expenses in common. In the sense, the alteration in the method of amassing expressed the procedures of maturation and dissemination of the experience of the mass cosmopolitan employee (Aglietta 1976). For example, in Italy, diverse dynamics were engaged to this end, such as computerization and working from home (Brusco 1975). The infuriated efficiency of incorporated labor, the reconstitution and preservation of an industrial reserve army, the convalescence of the technical gap, and the utilization of the connection involving inflation and depreciation as a political fiscal strategy, turned out to be the main mechanism of a single plan to realize the financial sequence by breaking down the class composition of the mass employee. In small and medium sized commerce’s significant technical growths were supported by the wider sharing of information technologies and continued by the low rate of work and different marginal forms of work practices that were crucial to the dialectical rapport among the robotic industrial unit and delegation at a high rate of extra value. The big factory does not vanish but its function and tactical importance are changed. It is naturally that the 1970s saw a revival of research on industrial estates and the alleged ‘Third Italy’ (Bagnasco 1977). The condition was equally multifaceted from the viewpoint of the subjectivity of livelihood labor and the alleged ‘fifth generation of workers’, who had lived in large cities between 1968 and 1977. The intelligence of the Fordist organization of production lay in the big factory which pursued the principles of Taylor’s technical administration. The industrial unit was positioned at the periphery of the city, and was the real centre of the labor market that produced a ‘rational, atomized and deskilled labor force in a procedure of automation and socialization of labor’ (Coriat 1979). The Fordist style of production was definitely not a common form and its realization varied and spread in different states as per their organizational possessions, the macro dynamics of credits and the impact of external shocks. However it is likely to recognize common features. They begin from infinite growth of mass production and of the ability of the market to take in through a steady alternative to economies of scale; from Taylor’s scientific administration to the anti-cyclical strategies of Keynes; and from the presume of an inexpert working class as independent political subject recognized in its political alterity, to the procedure of its radicalization that was known as the confused surroundings. In Italy this had a particular nature and well-versed the Italian expression on the change to Postfordism. Several identify it as model and find the roots of Postfordist hypothesis in the growth of the Italian financial system (Kumar 2000). When explaining the general aspects of the changeover to Postfordism care should be taken to evade ineffective nominal arguments, or worse, dangerous philosophies of history. The term Postfordism has given rise to ambiguous ‘feelings’: from a sort of real ‘bereavement’ to the happy anticipating of a new – it goes with no saying, superior – capitalism of opportunities. None of these ‘feelings’ is satisfactory. In general, the description of some apparent and long-term macro-tendencies is currently clear. The series of concurrent changes interrelated with significant actions of the renunciation of productive performance away from recognized industrial estates, and observed the surfacing of fresh large regions integrating the more dynamic financial areas and competent of developing the several advantages of the creative network all together. This change was the result of an entire set of dynamics that are multifaceted and inquired the leading ‘social form’ where the link between the financial system and politics was resolute; where labor, revenue, consumption and production, - next to the family, the school, the factory, gender relations and information - were macro sociological and macro political groups before being macro economic ones. What turned out to be of mass civilization (generation-online.org. ND) Conclusion In this essay the main differences in the organization of the labor process in Fordism and Post-Fordism were explained. Henry Ford was an accepted symbol of the change from farming to an industrial, mass production, mass consumption financial system. The dynamics of Fordism is strongly linked to the form and function of the Keynesian welfare state, which consecutively has significant inference for the dynamic of Fordism. However flexible production system radically abridged the demand for unskilled labor. Flexible production necessitates numerate and educated employees, competent of a high level of self-direction. Because of that, the number of unskilled industrial employees in the developed countries has been falling for almost last three decades. Reduced numbers have been mirrored in political turn down, as unskilled labor lost its leading role in the union movement and union influence in general has declined. In addition, mass productions decrease has been gone along with by a reduction in mass consumption. References Aglietta, M. (1976) Régulation et crises de capitalisme (Paris : Calmann-Levy Bagnasco, A. (1977) Tre Italie (Bologna: Il Mulino Beek, E., Buwalda, S., Stoop, J. (N.D). The impact of Fordism and Post Fordism on Urban Space [On line] Available from: < http://socgeo.ruhosting.nl/html/files/geoapp/Werkstukken/UrbanSpace.pdf> [20 December 2009] Bologna, S. (1974) Petrolio e mercato globale, Quaderni Piacentini, no. 52 Brusco, S. (1975) Economie di scala e livello tecnologico nelle piccole imprese in Graziani, A. Crisi e ristrutturazione nell’economia italiana (Torino: Einaudi). Chandler, Dupont, A. (1977) The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business. Cambridge, MA: Belknap. Coriat, B. (1979) La fabbrica e il cronometro (Milano: Feltrinelli) generation-online.org. (N.D) The Postfordist Lexicon [On line] Available from: < http://www.generation-online.org/t/postfordistintro.htm > [20 December 2009] Jessop, B. (N.D.). Post-fordism and the state [On line] Available from: < http://www.geo.ut.ee/inimtool/referaadid/krap/referaat_palhus.htm > [20 December 2009] Kumar, K. (2000) Le nuove teorie del mondo contemporaneo (Torino: Einaudi). willamette.edu., (N.D). Fordism, Post-Fordism and the Flexible System of Production [On line] Available from: < http://www.willamette.edu/~fthompso/MgmtCon/Fordism_&_Postfordism.html > [20 December 2009] Read More