Fractal Company — A Revolution in Corporate Culture

Abstract

Production engineering owes its recognition as a scientific discipline — approximately 100 years ago — to a methodical study of the industrial enterprise as a system for manufacturing goods. Since then it has been a fundamental matter of concern to distinguish and describe its principles and patterns. One of the first to do so was the British economist Adam Smith (1723–1790), who, using a needle manufacturer as an example, described the advantages of the division of labor to be derived from the creation of specialized work places. In the USA, Frederick Winslow Taylor (1856–1915) founded the concept of “scientific management.” Taylor’s system, based on the systematic study of work processes and the optimum organization of the time required to complete them, became acknowledged in America as the “best method of working.”