COMPUTERISED MACHINE‐TOOLS, MANPOWER CONSEQUENCES AND SKILL UTILISATION: A STUDY OF BRITISH AND WEST GERMAN MANUFACTURING FIRMS
| Author | Ian Nicholas,Malcolm Warner,Gert Hartmann,Arndt Sorge |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8543.1983.tb00131.x |
| Date | 01 July 1983 |
| Published date | 01 July 1983 |
COMPUTERISED MACHINE-TOOLS, MANPOWER
CONSEQUENCES AND SKILL UTILISATION:
A
STUDY OF
BRITISH
AND
WEST GERMAN MANUFACTURING FIRMS
GERT HARTMA”*
IAN
NICHOLAS*
*
MALCOLM WARNER??
ARNDT SORGE?
INTRODUCTION
The impact of the new information technology on organisation and manpower
depends on where and how it is used.
A
statement such as Rada’s (1980) to the effect
that ‘electronics.. .will substantially condition industrial and service activities and the
socio-political structure’ is at least potentially misleading, for its consequences may be
more due to the specific culture prevailing in such societies. It is thus advisable to
exercise great caution when examining any prediction
of
its effects.
Since the fifties, metal-cutting has undergone major technical advances. It has, in
the eyes of the layman, been ‘automated’. The development of Numerical Control
(N.C.)
of machine tools, has been followed gradually by the introduction
of
Computer
Numerical Control (C.N.C.) of such machines, involving the use of microprocessor
technology. The microprocessor increases their capabilities from that
of
merely
registering control information, and monitoring step-wise applications to providing
programming and other control facilities right on the machine.
An
alleged
consequence of both these technical developments has been greater ‘de-skilling’
of
shopfloor workers, according to writers such as Braverman (1978) and others. We
argue that this has not been equally true in advanced economies and we have looked at
British and German experiences to question this view and theories built upon it, which
emphasise ‘de-skilling’ as characterising the ‘labour process’ in the twentieth century.
The theoretical significance
of
the ‘de-skilling’ debate recently discussed critically in
the volume edited by Wood (1982) cannot, however, be divorced from its practical
implications regarding manpower-utilisation and training. Moreover, we feel that
national differences are likely to affect work organisation, and hence the relative
distribution of skills to be found. We therefore hypothesise that the integration
of
the
new technology into enterprises follows quite different routes in Britain and Germany.
British companies will in turn train and use noticeably less skilled workers than
German ones, and the difference will be particularly visible in production, as opposed
to maintenance jobs.
It may be further hypothesised that the reverse of de-skilling, may result if ‘changing
technology (automation) had induced a tightening up
of
selection criteria’ because
more skilled labour is required on the shop-floor as Windolf (1981) suggests. We also
conjecture that a greater utilisation of skilled labour may be anticipated in the future,
and stronger
in
Germany because of a relatively greater supply
of
trained manpower
there at all levels, as indicated by Prais (1981). In Germany, over half the primary
workforce has gone through a formalised apprenticeship.
Previous machine-tool applications controlled by paper tape programming prepared
in
the planning department (such as N.C.) have been to date essentially geared to
*
**
Assistant Director
of
Research, Ashridge Management College
t
tt
Professor and Research Co-ordinator, The Management College, Henley; and Brunel
University
Research Fellow, International Institute
of
Management, Berlin West
Research Fellow, International Institute
of
Management, Berlin West
22
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