Mediterranean Lean Production Supervisors, Teamwork and New Forms of Work Organization in Three European Car Makers

Abstract

In the last ten years most European car makers havedeveloped comprehensive reorganization projectsinspired by lean manufacturing principles. A keyelement of the renewed organizational model isteamwork: through teamwork firms aim at developinginformation exchange and innovation to improveproductivity and quality standards. Basedon empirical evidence accumulated in FIAT, Renault andSeat, this paper focuses on the impact of ElementaryOrganizational Units, a common team structure adoptedin Italian, Spanish and French plants.The paper sheds light on firstline supervisors, Unit team leaders, whoseposition represents the keystone of the neworganizational model. Although the factories widelyrely on horizontal coordination and self-organizingteams, new team leaders are still crucial hierarchicallevel and their function strongly affects the plantglobal performance.