Patterns of Work Organization in the German Automobile Industry

Abstract

While following the current discussion about lean production and group work, it is easy to forget that in the German automobile industry, there has been a trend towards alternative concepts of work organization since the early 80’s. The basis of these early reorganization attempts, termed by Kern/Schumann in 1984 as the new concepts of production, was the assumption that the Taylorist principles of division of labor by task simplification and the separation of conception and execution were becoming obstacles to further increases in productivity [5]. In the face of marketing strategies, emphasizing diversified quality production [13], and due to the requirements of technically advanced production processes1, many firms gradually realized that more integrated organizational structures were an efficient alternative. The typical German element in this discussion of the 80’s was, that these attempts led to higher qualifications in the work-force, achieved by both additional training and the increasing employment of skilled workers (Facharbeiter) in the production departments. The goals of these new strategies were task integration and the transfer of responsibilities from specialized support departments into the production areas. A reorganization policy evolved which, in terms of work organization, ventured to expand and intensely utilize the qualification potential of the employees in the direct production areas; this signified a break with the organizational principles of Taylorism. An additional factor in this developmental phase in the German automobile industry was that, based on the goal of raising the status and qualification level of production work, a structure of compromise between management, the workers’ councils and the unions evolved and in some cases, led to commonly supported reorganization policies for production and organizational structures.