Vices and virtues of specialized work

Vices et vertus du travail spécialisé

Jean-Louis Peaucelle ()
Additional contact information
Jean-Louis Peaucelle: UR - Université de La Réunion

Post-Print from HAL

Abstract: The specialized work, named since Adam Smith "division of labor", offers advantages and disadvantages. Adam Smith focused on productivity. Now, it seems that mechanization is the most important, which increases productivity and, to make the most of expensive machines, specializes one or more operators. Moreover, specialized tasks are quicker to learn. This work organization makes it possible to quickly integrate an untrained workforce into production. In addition, Charles Babbage has shown that, in a process with a specialization, wage differentials lower the cost price. If productivity is measured not by cadence but by useful output, it is necessary to take into account the time-outs associated with workload imbalances between workstations, planning failures or the incidence of work arrivals. All these factors make efficient operators versatile.

Keywords: division of labour; specialization; skillfulness; productivity; rate of work; slack period; temps mort; division du travail; spécialisation; polyvalence; Adam Smith; Charles Babbage; productivité; cadence (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.univ-reunion.fr/hal-01403887
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Published in Gérer et Comprendre. Annales des Mines, 2009, 97, pp.28 - 38. ⟨10.3917/geco.097.0028⟩

Downloads: (external link)
https://hal.univ-reunion.fr/hal-01403887/document (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-01403887

DOI: 10.3917/geco.097.0028

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Post-Print from HAL
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CCSD ().