Bureaucratic Standardization In Foxconn Factory

Through the industrial revolution alienation in the workplace has been a prominent issue that workers face due to the labour process. In a capitalist workplace, managers control the means of production giving workers little say to how they work. With the invention of scientific management, employers plan out the best way for workers to complete a task in the timeliest manner. The labour process is designed to maximize profit with little room for error or time wasting. The power employers hold over workers shows that workers are employed not on the basis of their skill but in order to follow rules. When workers are treated this way they can often be looked at as a commodity that can be replaced in an instant, further alienating them from the job at hand. Through this labour process workers are lacking in skill and the jobs themselves are

During the past 50 years the autocratic style has been used less and less and criticized more often. It is well known that a company who demonstrates this philosophy will have higher turnover and increased absenteeism than other companies. Now companies adopt the more modern permissive and interactive style. However Job's may never be outmatched by a single entity but due to his unique and aggressive style he single-handedly enhanced an entire organization, something the world never anticipated.

In Rivethead, Ben Hamper recalls life as an assembly worker for General Motors. As he exposes the faults of the American industrial system, he also gives the reader a glimpse into the constraining reality of blue collar life. After resisting his familial ties to GM, Hamper gives into the enticing prospects of a stable job. As Hamper explains the ins and outs of the assembly line, Rensis Likert 's organizational theory is ever-present. I argue that when Likert 's prescriptive theory is actually applied, these "systems" fit less into boxes and more into a spectrum. Although an argument for human resources organizations, Likert 's ideas can be used to examine how GM fits not only into the exploitive, authoritative System I but also the benevolent, authoritative System II. First, I will give an overview of Likert 's System IV, and then apply those systems to Ben Hamper 's Rivethead to support my argument.

This onslaught of capitalism directly revolutionized modern industrialism as well as the industrial city. Machines morphed the predominately agricultural nation to a herd of factory and corporate workers. Swarms of people, both native and immigrant, flocked to major cities. “The present century has been marked by a prodigious increase in wealth-producing power. The utilization of steam and electricity, the introduction of improved processes and labor saving machinery, the greater subdivision and grander scale of production, the wonderful facilitation of exchanges, have multiplied enormously the effectiveness of labor.”(George, p.20) The major problem with this newfound industrialism was the way in which the workforce was treated. Capitalism was supposed to provide a way out, a way ascend the financial and social staircase, if you worked hard enough. This however was not the case, if you were a loyal, hardworking employee you simply got to keep your job, and if you were in any way injured or incompetent you were fired.

Consequently, he decided to take initiative and put it to an end by declaring “to stop the motor of the world.” It was as though the company were trying to embed evil practices into the worker’s monotonous workload. Galt’s pure genius helped him devise a plan to stop these wretched procedures, and what better idea for employees to

Even though the working world gradually changed and standards and regulations for labor law and protection were introduced at least in the developed world, close connection between man and machine remains to this day. But how strongly have the machines influenced the working world, and what mechanisms are used to control, monitor and optimize

The chapter describes many new implementations of practices in mills, factories, and other workplaces. For example, near the beginning of the chapter, Eli Terry’s clock designs are thoroughly described. Terry is a prime example of how the American industry began to seriously produce technologies without the intricate and expensive hassle of European products. Terry’s clock designs reduced the length of the gear trains inside the clock and moved the gears and pendulum outside the frame, instead of encasing the entire clock like the older, more expensive “tall clock” design. Terry’s clock was easier to make, cheaper to produce, smaller, and much easier to clean and adjust. Chapter three also highlights other people who had similar approaches in changing their industry of expertise, including textiles and mass production. This approach is also described in chapter four, titled “American Arms: Whitney, North, Blanchard, and Hall,” which focuses for the most part on gun making. It describes the process of making a gun so it shoots correctly and accurately, and how this process was

In the era when capitalism was booming workers faced very harsh working conditions and little job security. The workers were the very last ones to benefit from their own work, “the products of capitalism invariably benefit[ed] the ‘wealthy’ first”(DiLorenzo, pg.96). Workers worked long hours sometimes even a 24 hour shift and maybe got a day off every two weeks, with a typical work week of 50-54 hours, where today it is only 40 hours. Due to this era being big on industrialism that meant machines were constantly replacing workers, that is “new machine techniques replacing old human skills

Factory workers have always been seen as the backbone of America’s economy. The gritty employees would work day in and day out, callusing their hands and providing for their families. A once lively and busy factory is now a quiet and calm . Now, a cold steel machine routinely does the same work, replacing the live worker. It was to further the industry that this transition was made. While they were introduced to help their human co-workers, in some aspects it also set them back. After the introduction of robots in factory settings some workers were cut because their position was obsolete. It was because of this, and many other factors, that there is much to compare and contrast when speaking of technology in the factory industry. Although this integration strengthened this field, it is because of this change that the business shifted, and the economy began to fall.

In the competition of capitalism, the highest factors for production have been the cost and time. For these goals to be met, management from the highest positions of the company rarely reflected their attention towards the laborers turning the screws, but the closest responsibility for these people were their supervisors. Employees that had to run machines during certain facility operations would be assigned extra

The Industrial Revolution collectively shaped the world of today into a superior nation. However, when its positive aspects are stripped away, the Industrial Revolution takes on an entirely different veneer. Sustained by gruesome substructures, this revolutionary progress created an acrid working environment inconsistent with its avant-garde. Due to streamlined mechanization of tasks and exploitation of lower class individuals, the Industrial Revolution gave way to the alienation of workers.

In A Shopkeeper’s Millennium, Johnson reveals that the emergence of industrial capitalism caused a numerous of effects. In an attempt to bring order, employees stopped living with their employers, ceased drinking during work hours and the social relation between employees and employers started to

As discussed by Lewchuk & Robertson (1997), the organizational culture and values of the company, were simply to limit any role the workers had in the decision-making process, which was called the Fordist model. Hence, mainstreaming the production problems to the managers and leadership would enable them to better control and carry out the improvement of the workers and their products.

Industrial Engineers often face the ethical dilemma of attempting to balance costs with quality and safety. Company management pressures Industrial systems engineers to design processes that are cost efficient, time constrained, and produce a high quality output. This puts the engineer in a tricky balancing act in which they are trying to make every stakeholder happy. Taking risks in order to create cost efficient solutions is not specific to only industrial engineers but applies to all disciplines of engineering, making this topic a relevant discussion. However, this conflict is especially true in a manufacturing setting where industrial engineers thrive, machine operators are often overworked, companies make products in high stakes, large batches, and the range of quality acceptance is growing ever smaller. A relevant example is the engineer who was designing a chemical plant in Mexico. In order to achieve the correct viscosity of the paint stripper, the engineer asked the plant operator to babysit the chemical mixture and manually release the valve when necessary. Engineering management’s decision puts the plant worker at a safety risk in order to achieve a tighter quality and standardization of the chemical stripper production process. Ultimately, this resulted in the catastrophic death of the plant worker and the destruction of the plant.

This synthesised, scientifically managed workflow was meant to improve labour productivity and economic efficiency. And thirdly, rather than having machinery at the centre of the factory and workers moving to and from the product, assembly lines were used. This meant that the workers remained stationary and the product simply flowed past them (Murray, 1989). They were essentially treated as robots and dictated by machines; operating to the duplicated, repetitive tasks daily and not given the opportunity to express potential for advancement or improvement.