LEAN PRODUCTION AND WHITE-COLLAR WORK - THE CASE OF SWEDEN

During the 1990s lots of books and reports have been written about lea n production. However, in these the authors mostly refer to blue-colla r workers. Thus, very little is written about lean production with ref erence to white-collar workers. This article outlines what happens to white-collar workers close to production when lean production is intro duced, mainly with reference to the case of Sweden. What happens to wo rk organization when the traditional bureaucratic organization is tom down? What kind of new demands are put on the officials? What will the demarcation line between blue- and white-collar workers look like in the near future? The development of so-called complete teams seems to dissolve the old Taylorist division between manual and intellectual wo rk.