| SolidSamurai | Tuesday, October 19, 2010 - 06:23 am 
Why?
They seem to be based on the idea of fordism and the expansion from those periods.
(from wiki)
"Fordism is "the eponymous manufacturing system designed to spew out standardized, low-cost goods and afford its workers decent enough wages to buy them".[7] It has also been described as "a model of economic expansion and technological progress based on the mass production: the manufacture of standardized products in huge volumes using special purpose machinery and unskilled labour".[8] Although Fordism was a method used to improve productivity in the automotive industry, this principle could be applied to any kind of manufacturing process. Major success stemmed from three major principles:
* The Standardization of the product
* The use of Special-purpose tools and/or equipment via the assembly line
* The Elimination of skilled labour in direct production, while simultaneously paying the worker higher wages.[9]
These principles coupled with a technological revolution during Henry Ford's time allowed for his revolutionary form of labour to flourish. It is true that his assembly line was revolutionary, but it was in no way original. His most original take was with his decomposition of complex tasks into simpler ones with the help of specialised tools.[10] This allowed for a very adaptable flexibility allowing the assembly line to change its components if need be, or whenever the vehicle in production evolved enough to warrant a change.[11] In reality, the assembly line had already been around before Ford, but not in quite the same effectiveness as Ford would create. His real accomplishment was recognizing the potential, breaking it all down into its components only to build it back up again in a more effective and productive combination.[12] The major advantages of such a change was that it cut down on the man power necessary for the factory to operate, not to mention that it deskilled the labour itself, cutting down on costs of production.[13] There are four levels of Fordism as described by Stroper and Scott."
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What it essentially says is that it reduces production cost and allows for higher wages.
The one thing that effectivity products disobey is that they seem to require increased professionals and less lower workers.
Which is opposite to what fordism describes - fordism allows less skilled labor which inevitably reduces production cost for companies and inevitably allows those of lower financial brackets to purchase said products.
So what I'm thinking is that beyond a certain point (200+?) effectivity products should lower quality. Beyond 200, the company essentially takes a direction in the way it produces things - the economy car or the luxury, essentially. |
