Da Mirafiori a Melfi: La Fiat dal Fordismo alla Produzione Snella

This thesis discusses Scientific Management and Toyota Production System in Fiat. Scientific management can be considered a hybrid between Fordism/Taylorism and Toyotism/Ohnism. These methods have different geographic origins: the first spread in the U.S.A. in the early twentieth century, and it had its first major application in the production of the famous Ford Model T. This system provided for a particular division of jobs in an assembly line, where the production was highly organized. Assembly lines enabled the development of the mass market in the U.S.A. and in Europe. On the other hand, the Toyota production system began in Japan after World War II and was invented by Taiichi Ohno at Toyota. This method, which consisted mainly in producing cars when there was a lack of material and human resources, spread throughout the world in the eighties. It was in direct contrast to the American system, because the objective was to produce small numbers of cars in several models, while Scientific Management produced a few models in large quantities. “The minimum factory” was therefore introduced, reducing productive functions, such as capital assets and workers, to quantities strictly necessary to meet daily demands. This system was based on two fundamental “pillars”: the “just in time” production and “self-activation”. The former, provides parts needed in the quantity required and exactly when they are needed, without inventories. The second pillar, originating from the looms, initiated a general reorganization of staff and equipment, ready to ensure a streamline, flexible and transparent production, in the never-ending search for “total quality”. In the Seventies the crisis of Fordism spread to Europe and through the United States, because of the oil crisis. Many companies became interested in Japanese production methods. In Italy, FIAT passed the seventies in conflict due to events such as fluctuating oil prices, Brigate Rosse terrorism and much labour unrest. In the Eighties FIAT made huge investments into “high-level automation”, and it inaugurated plants at Termoli and Cassino making use of sophisticated manufacturing technologies. However, this novelty was not enough to increase production quality. In effect, in the Nineties the company actuated numerous deep changes in work organization and worker jobs that led to the “integrated factory”.