Publications

Ruffier, J.
Productive efficiency: how factories work

Montevideo, Cinterfor, 1998
215 p. (Tools for change, 7)

 

(Full text only available in Spanish in pdf format)

 

Going through factories in France and around the world, one doesn't cease to feel amazed by the complexity of the equipment and the number of specialists from different fields that participate in their operation. By luck of what miracle does all of this articulate itself for the factory to produce in a more and more demanding setting? Confronting the theories with numerous surveys and field works, the author sketches the beginnings of an explanation at the same time as he constructs an instrument to measure success. This procedure allows us to appreciate the quality of factory performance. In particular, it puts in evidence the way in which circulation of relevant information between producers represents the key to success, much more than does their level of motivation or training. It also lets us see how considerable technical difficulties could be overcome in the transferal of technologies between France and countries like Mexico or China, or simply in the making of a flexible workshop on behalf of a factory of Lyon. A paper located in the intersection between sociology, economy and the engineering sciences, it contributes a new type of analysis justified by numerous works made in all the continents by an international team of investigators. It rejects the option of all-against-all economic war, and proposes instruments for those who wish to be, above all, creators of new riches. Finally it shows that a modern productive system nurtures itself on relations widely exceeding the enterprise itself, and makes us rethink, on different terms, productive ties.

 

 

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