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Teamwork and New Forms of Work Organisation in Fiat’s ‘Integrated Factory’

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Teamwork in the Automobile Industry

Abstract

The majority of European car makers have recently reacted to market downturn and intense global competition by introducing comprehensive strategic and organisational changes. These consist of new products, new plants or automated equipment, investment in innovative industrial relations and human resource management policies. Fiat too, at the turn of the decade, launched a total quality programme based on the adoption of Japanese management concepts and new human resource policies: the Fabbrica Integrata organisational scheme, elaborated and implemented by Fiat during the 1990s, reveals substantial transformations of traditional production systems and work organisation models. In particular, a main feature of the Fabbrica Integrata model is an original form of teamwork — the Elementary Organisational Unit — conceived as the cornerstone of the new factory structure. This chapter aims to shed light on this new form of group work using evidence from fieldwork carried out in two Italian plants.

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© 1999 Jean-Pierre Durand, Paul Stewart and Juan José Castillo

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Camuffo, A., Micelli, S. (1999). Teamwork and New Forms of Work Organisation in Fiat’s ‘Integrated Factory’. In: Durand, JP., Stewart, P., Castillo, J.J. (eds) Teamwork in the Automobile Industry. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-14933-9_10

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