“For much of the 20th century manufacturing has been organized around mass production, a model often termed “Taylorist” after Frederick W. Taylor, the founder of scientific management, or “Fordist”, after Henry Ford who built the first mass production factory. Taylor saw work, not as a matter of skill and craftsmanship, but as a series of discrete motions which could be analyzed to generate the most efficient, most easily replicated pattern for accomplishing any task. Ford combined such narrowly specified jobs with a highly engineered environment of mechanical conveyances, specialized equipment for repetitive production of standardized parts, and orderly sequencing of the flow of work. The Fordist factory became one of the emblematic institutions of the mid-century industrial economy and one of the engines of post World War II prosperity. Although factory workers participated in the general rise in the material standard of living, their jobs were often tedious, physically exhausting and devoid of interest, responsibility or authority. As a whole, the system was slow to adjust to economic cycles or changing social or consumer needs. Since the 1970s there has been much rethinking of the Fordist system, and once again, leading candidates for new manufacturing models emerged in the auto industry. “
