Researching the Real World 3.3.3.3 Observation to deconstruct culture
Note on Fordism and Post-Fordism
BusinessDictionary.com (undated) defines Fordism as:
'A manufacturing philosophy that aims to achieve higher productivity by standardizing the output, using conveyor assembly lines, and breaking the work into small deskilled tasks. Whereas Taylorism (on which Fordism is based) seeks machine and worker efficiency, Fordism seeks to combine them as one unit, and emphasizes minimization of costs instead of maximization of profit. Named after its famous proponent, the US automobile pioneer Henry Ford (1863-1947).'
Marxist Glossary (undated) defines Fordism as:
– after Henry Ford (1863-1947); method of industrial management based on assembly-line methods production of cheap, uniform commodities in high volume, and winning employee loyalty with good wages, but intolerant of unionism or employee participation.
Post-Fordism moves on from the assembly line and standardised production to flexible production. Thompson (undated) states that:
Flexible production rests on the presumption that a competitive edge cannot be gained by treating workers like machines and that nobody in the manufacturing process, but the assembly worker, adds value, that the assembly worker can perform most functions better than specialists (lean manufacturing), and that every step of the fabrication process should be done perfectly (TQM), thus reducing the need for buffer stocks (JIT) and producing a higher quality end-product....
References
BusinessDictionary.com (undated), 'Fordism' available at http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/Fordism.html, accessed 14 June 2013.
Encyclopedia of Marxism, Glossary: Fo, available at http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/f/o.htm, accessed 14 June 2013.
Thompson, G.F., undated, Fordism, Post-Fordism, and the Flexible System of Production, Center for Digital Discourse and Culture, Virginia Tech, available at http://www.cddc.vt.edu/digitalfordism/fordism_materials/thompson.htm, accessed 14 June 2013.