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Social Science, Critical, and Socio-Technical Approaches to Lean Production
Published in Darina Lepadatu, Thomas Janoski, Framing and Managing Lean Organizations in the New Economy, 2020
Darina Lepadatu, Thomas Janoski
The technical aspects of work in Post-Fordism are somewhat general. First, there is a massive shift from manufacturing to service work (i.e., post-industrialism). Second, in the area of manufacturing, mass production is replaced by more specialized production processes, which provide more unique designs and higher quality. Third, specialization requires shorter production runs and even sometimes batch processing, but in either case they are produced by flexible labor arrangements. Fourth, new technologies involving computerization and robotics also make flexible production possible and profitable. Fifth, production is controlled through flexible technical and human systems using computer technology and instantaneous communications. And sixth, large organizations with bureaucratic characteristics are changed into more responsive, flexible, and usually flat organizations with minimal hierarchy. Also associated with post-Fordism is a shift in consumerism such that people now prefer more interesting and unique items. Emblematic of this was the shift from modernist architecture with its straight and shiny lines indicating total functionality (and somewhat contrary to the theory—complete flexibility within the building) and post-modern architecture with buildings with more interesting nooks, crannies, and sometimes surprising juxtapositions of different styles. Post-Fordism went along with the view that all of society was changing in the direction of post-modernity, distancing itself from Fordism with its boredom with standardization in production, imitative products, and cookie-cutter urban landscapes.
Changing use and performance of industrial estates from 1965 onward: the case of the Parkstad conurbation, the Netherlands
Published in Journal of Urban Design, 2019
From the 1970s onward, the Fordist model arguably has been succeeded by a post-Fordist model (Amin 1994). Production has become more footloose and global, replacing the balanced producer-consumer interrelation with flexible responsiveness to changing market demands. As the post-Fordist economy is more differentiated and encompasses services, recreation and leisure, sites of economic production are no longer unequivocally industrial but include other programmes. Moreover, companies are organized in a global manner and are highly specialized, with higher demands in terms of their locational policy. The service-based urban landscape is more diffuse and, in terms of typology and iconography, its generic architecture lacks any expression of functionality or possible ties to local communities.