historia de la industria

Of course, one might argue that the short-term decline in the absolute number of American manufacturing Jobs since the mid-1990s is due to a recent offshoring trend. However, the data does not support this either. While the united states experienced an 11 percent reduction in manufacturing employment between 1995 and 2002, china had a 15 percent reduction, brazil had a 20 percent reduction, andglobally the decrease was exactly the same as in the united states-11 percent (drezner 2004). Hence, it appears that we are still witnessing a worldwide productivity boom in manufacturing similar to the one that revolutionized agriculture in the early years of the 20th century. During the so-called green revolution, employment in agriculture declined from 29 percent of the workforce in 1929 toless than 3 percent by 1985. If the current “lean revolution” in manufacturing continues, we can expect further increases in manufacturing output accompanied by a decline in total factory jobs around the globe.
The management implications of this are clear. More than ever, manufacturing is a game of making more with less. Manufacturing managers must continue to find ways to meet continuallyelevating customer expectations with ever higher levels of efficiency. Because the pressure of global competition leaves little room for error and because manufacturing is becoming increasingly complex, both technologically and logistically, manufacturing managers must be more technically literate than ever before.
The economic implications of the lean revolution are less unclear. When jobs inagriculture were automated, they were replaced by higher-productivity, higher-pay manufacturing jobs. It would be nice if manufacturing jobs lost or not created as a result of productivity advances were replaced by higher-productivity, higher-pay service jobs. But, while high-pay service jobs exist, as of April 2007 average hourly compensation was still higher in goods-producing firms than inservice-producing firms by a margin of 18.00 to 16.26 (bureau of labor statistics 2007). This discrepancy may account for the recent stagnation in growth of real wages. Specifically, from 1970 to 1985 productivity grew at a pace of 1.9 percent per year and real wages grew 0.87 percent per year, but from 1985 to 1996 growth in productivity was 2.5 percent while wage growth was only 0.26 percent per year.Reversing this trend may require applying the analogies of “lean” manufacturing to the service sector to accelerate productivity growth.
Finally, while speaking if manufacturing as a monolithic whole way continue to make for good political rhetoric, it is important to remember the reality is that performance of the manufacturing sector is achieved one firm at a time. Certainly a host of generalpolicies, from tax codes to educational initiatives, can help the entire sector somewhat; the ultimate success of each individual firm is fundamentally determined by the effectiveness of its management. Hence, quite literally, our economy, and our very way of life in the future, depends on how well American manufacturing managers adapt to the new globally competitive environment and evolve their firmsto keep pace.


Por supuesto, uno podría argumentar que la reducción a corto plazo en el número absoluto de empleos en la manufactura estadounidense desde la década de 1990 se debe a una tendencia a la deslocalización reciente. Sin embargo, los datos no es compatible con este tampoco. Mientras que los Estados Unidos experimentaron una reducción del 11 por ciento del empleo industrial entre 1995y 2002, China tuvo una reducción del 15 por ciento, Brasil tuvo una reducción del 20 por ciento, y en el mundo el descenso fue exactamente el mismo que en los estados unidos-11 por ciento (2004 Drezner ). Por lo tanto, parece que estamos siendo testigos de un auge de la productividad a nivel mundial en la fabricación similar a la que revolucionó la agricultura en los primeros años del siglo 20....