After summarizing the characteristics and the emergence of the Fordist system and how it helped to assuage the ill-effects of the secular falling trend in profit rates by towering unit-costs and prices and substantially increasing sales and total profits, the author recounts the reasons why firms were forced to seek alternatives to the Fordist system starting in the early 1970's. Following a comparison of the Fordist and Tayota systems, the author then discusses the unique characteristics of the production system first developed by Toyota that can be regarded as a prototype of new Flexible Production Systems, which rely on computer-supported automation, which have revolutionized labor-use by assigning to "labor-teams" responsibility, opportunity to use initiative and multiple functions including that of quality control and which have proved effective in responding to a plethora of consumer tastes and choices by achieving very rapid retooling of machinery and equipment for the production of packets of parts for the simultaneous production of dozens of models -a feature unattainable in the old (Fordist) mass production techniques.
Key words: na Article Language: EnglishTurkish
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