The Beginning and End of Primitive Flexible Manufacturing System

Industries of developed market economies experienced a structural transformation in the form of a shift from the use of methods of mass-production or Fordist methods to modern flexible method of production. The shift in the organization of production led to several studies, which examined the historical process, which reduced the popularity of methods of mass-production and paved the way for the adoption of flexible methods of production. However, there is a paucity of studies, which describe and analyze the method of organization of production that existed prior to the emergence of methods of mass-production. Present study is a modest attempt to expose the students and researchers of management to that system and explain the historical process, which led to its origin and subsequent decline. The system has been defined here as primitive flexible system of production, because the only characteristic which distinguishes the modern flexible methods of production from primitive flexible method of production is the level and the complexity of the technology being used.