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﻿<title﻿>﻿New Socialist Magazine, The Challenge of Agile Manufacturing - Article﻿</title>﻿
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﻿<b﻿>﻿The Challenge of Agile Manufacturing
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by Bruce Allen﻿<br﻿>﻿
﻿<i﻿>﻿New Socialist Magazine, May - June 1996﻿</i>﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿
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﻿<font﻿ ﻿size="1"﻿>﻿Agility, a key new management technique, is a central factor in theradical reshaping of industrial production now underway throughout the industrialized world. Bruce Allen reviews the definitive work to date on the subject, ﻿<i﻿>﻿Agile Competitors and Virtual Organizations﻿</i>﻿ by Steven L. Goldman, Roger N. Nagel and Kenneth Preiss (published by Van Nostrand Reinhold) and highlights not only changes to the workplace but also the urgent need for dramatic changes in the labour movement. ﻿</font>﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

In the foreword to ﻿<i﻿>﻿Agile Competitors and Virtual Organizations﻿</i>﻿, Lee Iacocca declares: "Agility is an inevitable part of the new industrial order." The book's authors echo him. They proclaim that what is now emerging is "an agility-based global economy in which the wealth-creating systems at work in the world today are being structurally transformed." 
﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿
These are bold claims. But Goldman, Nagel and Preiss show that they are also accurate. They convincingly assert that agile manufacturing, or agility, will define the future of industrial manufacturing in the early part of the next century in much the same way that lean manufacturing methods have reshaped industry in the latter part of this one. In doing this, they have made Agile Competitors and Virtual Organizations the definitive work to date on the subject of agility. Their book even merits comparison to the definitive work on lean production, The Machine that Changed the World with respect to discussing the way the modern workplace is organized. 
﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿
The very real possibility that this book will prove so significant bodes well for the future of its three authors and for the growing army of high-powered corporate proponents of agile manufacturing. It does not augur well for the future of today's labour movement, however. Indeed, the advent of agility calls into question the future existence of the contemporary labour movement. 
﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿
There is no lack of evidence in this book to show why agility is a serious threat to organized labour. Goldman, Nagel and Preiss demonstrate that agility is wholly compatible with the radical changes taking place in the global economy and that successful adaptation to these changes by becoming agile can enable any corporation to take full advantage of perviously unattainable business opportunities. 
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The authors demonstate that "agile competitors" will be able to virtually wipe out those that do not embrace agility. It follows that corporations that have to deal with unions that resist agility will not be able to survive in this new world order -- nor will the jobs of workers represented by such unions. Increased corporate blackmail of workers and their organizations will be the order of the day. 
﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿
There is also the matter of what Goldman, Nagel and Preiss say an agile workforce will look like. According to them, such a workforce can only be one in which workers embrace an "entrepreneurial culture," meaning that they identify with and actively pursue their bosses' goals. Accordingly, they expect employee compensation to be in large part based on "the contribution of employees to the bottom line." Adversarial relationships between bosses and workers are simply dismissed as "dysfunctional." 
﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿
Traditional seniority and classification systems born of Henry Ford and Frederick Taylor's mass production system will become things of the past with the emergence of an agility-based global economy. Agile workers will be expected to toil within "innovative, flexible organizational structures that make rapid decision-making possible by distributing managerial authority." This means that workers will be expected to work in fluid team-based organizations. It also means that we will be confronted with outsourcing on an unprecedented scale and with the continued growth of a pitifully insecure, part-time workforce employed on an "as needed" basis. 
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Goldman, Nagel and Preiss also show that the emergence of agile manufacturing is the logical result of a progression in the way that industrial manufacturing is carried out. They demonstrate that agile is already supplanting the mass production system and moving beyond the "achievements" of the lean or Toyota system of production while simultaneously incorporating and building upon many of lean's features. Total Quality Management and Continuous Improvement are two notable lean phenomena which the authors cite as "milestones in the journey to agility." 
﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿
The authors try to attach a benevolent face to all this. They assert that agility's purpose is to enable businesses to greatly profit from being able to "enrich their customers" as never before. This means that agility promises to enable corporations to offer products and related services made exactly to order at about the same cost to the customer as the mass-produced goods of the past which were made without much thought to individual customer preference. 
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Workers should recognize that another purpose of agility is to enable corporations to downsize both their operations and workforce more rapidly and to a far greater degree than has ever before been possible, and that we are the ones who will suffer the consequences. At one point, Goldman, Nagel and Preiss acknowledge these things, but only in passing. They nonetheless expect unions to go along with and even facilitate such corporate downsizing by supporting agility. Significantly, some US union leaders are already on board. 
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In view of the fact that radical corporate downsizing is just part of what workers can look forward to in an agile future, the labour movement is clearly in dire need of a wake-up call concerning agility -- and must recognize that it places organized labour's future in peril. Goldman, Nagel and Preiss deserve thanks for inadvertently telling us this, and for showing the urgent need for swift and dramatic change within the labour movement in response. We appear to be faced with an all or nothing situation. 
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﻿<font﻿ ﻿size="1"﻿>﻿Bruce Allen is an activist in Canadian Auto Workers Local 199 in St. Catharine's, Ontario. ﻿</font>﻿</font>﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

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