Flexibility through Modularity: Experimentations with Fractal Production in Brazil and in Europe

Abstract

This chapter analyses the organisational innovations which auto makers have been undertaking since the mid-1990s. It assesses the advantages and the limitations of fractal production. Most of the innovator's experimentations with new methods of production have taken place in emerging spaces, the best examples being the measures which were taken following VW's take-over of the Spanish carmaker Seat in 1986, and the Czech Skoda in 1991. The chapter provides the experiments: both in Brazil, a country in which many of the new methods of production were first elaborated; and in Europe, where the practices have been introduced progressively. It focuses on how fractal production makes it easier for automobile manufacturers operating in their sector's new, globalised environment to confront the imperative of flexibility. The chapter evaluates the various obstacles which could act to hinder implementation of the new type of productive organisation.