The Automaker that Changed the World. High Automation, Total Quality Management and Digitalization at FIAT Chrysler Automobiles (FCA). A Comment on “Working conditions within Italian FCA Group plants” by Matteo Gaddi

Valeria Pulignano

doi:10.6092/issn.1971-8853/11296

Authors

Valeria Pulignano Centre for Sociological Research (CESO) – KU Leuven http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6466-491X
Valeria Pulignano is Professor in Sociology at the Centre for Sociological Research (CESO) - KU Leuven. He has published extensively on topics related to the sociology of work, comparative European industrial (employment) relations, labour markets and inequality, working conditions and job quality and workers’ voice. She serves as Principal Coordinator of the research network on Work, Employment and Industrial Relations within the European Sociological Association and she is Co-Researcher at CRIMT (Centre for Globalisation and Work) at the University of Montreal and Laval in Canada. She is PI of a founded ERC Advanced Grant ResPecTMe on Resolving Precariousness: Advancing the Theory and Measurement of Precariousness across the paid/unpaid work continuum. She is author of several books among which Reconstructing Solidarity: Labour Unions, Precarious Work, and the Politics of Institutional Change in Europe (with V. Doellgast and N. Lillie), Oxford University Press (2018); Employment Relations in an Era of Change (with H. D. Köhler and P. Stewart), ETUI (2016); The Transformation of Employment Relations (with J. Arrowsmith), Routledge (2013); Flexibility at Work: Critical Developments in the International Automobile Industry (with P. Stewart, A. Danford, and M. Richardson), Palgrave-Macmillan (2008). She is Chief-editor of Work, Employment and Organization. Frontiers of Sociology.

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.1971-8853/11296

Keywords:

Work Organization, Automotive Industry, Total Quality Management, High Automation, Digitalization

Abstract

What we observe today are not the unintended social effects of the “Machine who changed the world.” Rather they are the outcomes produced by automakers and other leading industries, who have pursued a strategy intended to maximize profitability by thereby attempting to change "the Machine." When Womack, Jones, and Roos wrote The Machine that Changed the World in 1990, Japanese automakers, and Toyota in particular, were applying the principles of lean production. However, the outcomes and power of lean principles were still unproven, and they had not been applied outside of the automobile industry, yet. Today, surveys on the working conditions within Italian FIAT Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) Groups plants illustrate that lean principles may be problematic.

References

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The Automaker that Changed the World. High Automation, Total Quality Management and Digitalization at FIAT Chrysler Automobiles (FCA). A Comment on “Working conditions within Italian FCA Group plants” by Matteo Gaddi

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