Experience and the collective nature of skill

Abstract

As information technology diffuses through manufacturing, an increasingly important question concerns the ways in which workers acquire and use skills in high-tech production (Cole, 1989; Brown, Reich, & Stern, 1991). In this chapter I explore skill formation in two advanced auto plants in Mexico: an engine plant and an assembly and stamping complex. The plants – at the cutting edge of a new international division of labor – provide an excellent context to observe the ways in which skills are formed and used. At their launch in the 1980s, the two factories brought together inexperienced though well-educated workers with some of the most advanced manufacturing technologies used anywhere in the world. People who had never been in a factory before had to grapple with operating and maintaining robots, computer-controlled machining lines, laser measuring systems, and a host of other advanced machines and computerized systems. Surprisingly, both plants enjoyed impressive success: in the space of several years they matched or surpassed the performance of comparable U.S. and even Japanese plants in critical areas such as quality.