Abstract
Governed by political-economic factors rather than technical necessities, the past development of small batch production has led to advanced horizontal and vertical division of labor, job shop manufacturing, and the use of NC machines. This caused serious difficulties such as long and variant throughput times, an unfavourable ratio of unproductive to productive workers, and low quality of work. Additionally confronted with deeply changed market conditions, the management is split in tow lines struggling for the right answer to this challenge. Most managers and production planners try to replace human work still further by enforced use of computers on the shop floor and in the technical office in an integrated manner (CIM). Since this strategy is in danger to create new severe problems, the minority seeks to avoid them by reorganizing production and rearranging the division of functions between man and machine profoundly (skill based production). This position is outlined in some detail including examples of realized subsystems as first steps on this development path. Finally, reasons for superiority and forces of inertia are discussed.
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