Kidd, Paul. 1994. Agile Manufacturing: Forging New Frontiers. Addison-Wesley Publishing Company. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1118795.Agile_Manufacturing?from_search=true.
Source: Brown squirrel on brown post. Dušan Smetana, Unsplash
Summary
Claim: Mass production paradigm which is used in US and Europe cannot compete with new models because of its inflexibility and high amounts of waste (2).
Keywords: mass production, lean manufacture, agile manufacture
In conversation with: the Japanese lean manufacturing, which is seen as something 'we' should catch up with and overtake. Taylorist model, against which the critique is built (109). Hard systems thinking (182), as a belief that requirements can be defined upfront, is rejected in favour of incremental delivery.
Aim: to delineate agile from lean and to explain how the two differ.
Method: develops the methodology of agile in comparison with lean system used in Japan. The reason for Japan/the West is not explained and brings about further doubts as to whether cultural differences also have any impact on the capitalist modes of production in globalized market. The shortcoming of existing mass production model is seen in its division of organisation, people and technology independently, where agile improves by addressing those three components in their unity (3).
The book follows a narrative method and looks at three broad themes: (a) conceptual framework of agile; (b) cultural and methodological challenges in switching to agile; (c) designing a methodology for agile enterprise.
Why important
To CEO's, manufacturing strategists and engineers. Manufacturing researchers and policymakers: to gain a broad picture of the whole agile enterprise (viii).
To general public: the new way of manufacturing is something that both the workers, and the environment will benefit from.
Relevance to my research: Kidd's theory is an example of an early attempt to theorize agile, thus rejecting the difference between digital vs other types of production, which would allow me to spot any pitfalls in this kind of analysis. Also, I need to know how agile works is non-digital sphere, for the purposes of my comparative study.
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Notes:
Agile manufacturing is defined as a business concept that is able to respond to changes in the market environment by using knowledge as its fundamental resource (2).
Lean manufacturing is explained as having several interacting sub-systems: product design and production, supply chain and sales (141).
Taylorism (107) - a traditional manufacturing strategy, system aimed at maximising control, where people are used in a narrow mechanistic way.
Kidd characterises key trends of Taylorist doctrine as follows: reductionism (dealing with issues in isolation), optimisation of components, one best way, absence of goal definition (problems and goals are not questioned), mechanistic model of people. hierarchical and centralising style, value free design (no political, moral, ethical or other bias), separation of thinking and doing, individual reward for individual effort (prioritising individual over the team) (108).
To Kidd, the danger of Taylor model is that it has been around for so long, it has been assimilated into the cultural practices of labour and is largely taken for granted. Yet, as production environment were growing more chaotic and competitive from the early 2000s, the model was rapidly becoming obsolete. Technological determinism aside, the most dangerous attribute of Taylorist model is the legacy of which is still haunting much of the theory around today’s management is the stark antagonism implied in the worker-manager relationship - something the Kidd calls “separation of thinking and doing”. The initiative is removed from the teams, encouraging a counterproductive ‘us and them’ attitude to work, that has become synonymous with poor industrial relations (Kidd, 1994:111). My thesis takes the critique one step further by placing the managerial fuction outside of capitalist mode production all together - a blind spot of not only Kidd’s project, but much of other research done in professional sphere (see also Rubin, 2012 and Wang and Koh, 2010).