Essay Example on According to Barker modernism represents a period of radical Change

For instance when Ford introduced the Model T which was simple and light car and very popular at the time the amount of labor required to produce a single car was of 12hours After introducing the assembly line the production time dropped from 12hours to 2hrs Thus the Model T was made fast enough to lower the costs and were made affordable enough for average people to own one Fordism is much related to the form and function of the Keynesian welfare state which in turn has important implications with Fordism Keynesianism is the economic theories of John Maynard Keynes advocating government monetary and fiscal programs designed to increase and encourage employment and stimulate business activity It was marked as a period in which the state played a significant interventionist role as a creator of social welfare provisions conflict resolver and direct employer During the early 1970 Fordism experienced serious problems caused majorly by the oil crisis in 1972 the saturation of markets due to overproduction the spending power that reached a point where people can't purchase any more goods and there was an increased price competition from the newly industrialized countries such as Japan Taiwan Korea All these issues led to the fall of Fordism and the emergence of a new revised strategy called post Fordism as stated by Toffler Vast changes in the techno sphere and the infosphere have converged to change the way we make goods We are moving rapidly beyond traditional mass production to a sophisticated mix of mass and demassified products The ultimate goal of this effort is now apparent completely customized goods made with holistic continuous flow processes increasingly under the direct control of the consumer The core of Post Fordism is mass customization being able to provide large quantities of goods but with the option of customizing them for specific markets or customer preferences 

The aim is to produce what the customers or consumers want and how and what design they want it In other words the balance of quantity and the demand in the market is a crucial factor when it comes to Post Fordism This system allows that businesses produce only what the market requires and in the accurate amount and the needed time Post Fordism involves a restructuring of the labor process It is aimed at multi Skilling workers instead of the deskilled labor that keep repeating the same task like machines The purpose is to create a more horizontal labor with an emphasis on worker co responsibility as stated by Womack A decentralization of the decision making which allows the labor force to have more space to make their own decision concerning their work 45 This decentralized decision making refers that Work is more self regulated there are no managers behind the backs of the workers they are more independent and have more control over the work Therefore Post Fordism will help businesses to find the most creative skilled manual workers which is very important and advantageous for the firms Because when workers being given space and time to innovate and think it will create competitive advantage so that businesses will benefit from their labor Because they were given the decisions over their work We can see in this country a culture of post Fordist capitalism emerging Consumption has a new place As for production the keyword is flexibility of plant and machinery as of products and labour Emphasis shifts from scale to scope and from cost to quality Organizations are geared to respond to rather than regulate markets They are seen as frameworks for learning as much as instruments of control Their hierarchies are flatter and their structures more open The guerrilla force takes over from the standing army Murray