Tricks and Trucks: Ten Years of Organizational Renewal at DAF

摘要

The basic question underlying this article is whether or not lean production (LP)can be considered to be a fad, a question that can be answered at two levels. Firstly, does lean production provide new theoretical insights. Secondly, does lean production constitute a new approach for a particular organization, namely, DAF. With respect to the first question, it was concluded in section 2 that LP is nothing more or less than the Toyota Production System. LP is clearly a fad and does not provide new insights as a prescriptive design-oriented approach. The second question was investigated by studying DAF Trucks, a firm judged to be of special interest as it was known to have promoted Modern Sociotechnology (MST), an approach to organizational design which, at face value, differs drastically from LP. From the comparison of LP and MST, it was concluded in section 3 that as ideal typical concepts they have much in common. The main difference is the approach to 'quality of working life'. This item is ignored by LP, whereas achieving a high quality of working life is one of the goals of MST, next to organizational performance. In section four, a brief overview of the contents of both approaches as far as DAF concerns was given.