In a paper consisting of five pages the batch system of Professor Joan Woodward is discussed so as to be disproven with Allied Corporation, which is featured in Michael Burawoy's Manufacturing Consent, being used as an example. There are four bibliographic sources cited.
Name of Research Paper File: D0_MTallbat.rtf
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"batch system manufacturing," which, as defined in this paper, is the exact opposite of mass production. The assertion that Woodward made in her theory was that products coming out of
the batch system method were of better quality and more customized; a theory that was new and exciting to most industrial managers and administrative scientists.
Ever since her theories have been introduced, however, industrial experts have found ways to debunk them - and these experts may have a point. Taking the case
of Allied Corporation, a company that manufactured a variety of equipment for specific niche markets (such as farming and trains) and used the batch system to do so, what we
find is that Woodwards theory simply never worked. The main purpose of this paper is to try to tie the manufacturing concept
of the batch production system to the manufacturing systems of Allied Corporation, a company in Chicago, Illinois, that was well-known for its paternalistic, yet outmoded, style of working with labor.
Definition-The Batch Production System Possibly the most definitive definition of batch manufacturing was suggested by the late professor Joan Woodward, who
noted that these systems had small lot sizes, low levels of automation, general purpose machinery and low control of production (Hull and Collins, 1987). She also argued that production technologies
follow an "evolutionary pattern in which volume, specialization, standardization of workflow, predictability and control increase" (Hull and Collins, 1987, p. 787).
Yet during the past two decades, batch operations have moved to more complex technologies, particularly in the areas of automation, integration and regulation - yet per Woodwards definition of batch