Life on the Line in Contemporary Manufacturing

What influence have Japanese management techniques (Just-in Time-Production and Total Quality Management, for example) had on the way work is organized in `transplants', and more broadly in other firms and sectors? Rick Delbridge sought an answer to these questions by working on the shopfloor in a Japanese consumer electronics transplant and a European automotive components supplier in order to witness and experience life on the line in contemporary manufacturing. He offers rich empirical data on the lived reality of work and a management practice that may share little in common with that found in the textbooks; he also raises a number of important issues about the best ways to understand the complex and changing nature of work.