Changing Manufacturing Landscape: From a Factory to a Network

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the technological, the managerial, and the societal transformation from the old manufacturing system into the new, discussing the drivers, the challenges, and the opportunities connected to the transformation. The suggestion is that we are moving from a Taylorist-Fordian factory model towards “Manufacturing-as-a-Network,” which indicates new types of busines possibilities, risks, and transformative implications to the society at large. Traditionally, manufacturing happens within factory walls, where a factory is understood as a place for mass production of goods. It is an assembly of machines and workers who are organized and managed to maximize efficiency and productivity. “Manufacturing-as-a-Network” is unlike the factory as we know it and answers to the needs of the postindustrial society. It is a network structured to perform specific and tailored products in collaboration with customers, for customers, and sometimes by customers.