Do it right the first time‐quality as the crucial change agent in the European steel industries

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Originally a mass production industry, the production and transformation of steel has become a high‐tech industry with a differentiated quality production, marching in the vanguard of computer‐integrated manufacturing. During the severe crisis of the 1980s, relevant parts of the European steel industry managed to establish new patterns of quality‐oriented rationalization along with modernized approaches to workforce deployment. Indeed, new patterns of Human Resource Management are appearing, partly formulated as comprehensive post‐Tayloristic strategies, partly hidden under a patchwork of conventional and neo‐Tayloristic measures. Systemic rationalization, especially in the pursuit of quality, leads to a growing need of what we call systemic cooperation. @ 1995 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.