Development, Technology and Flexibility

Development, Technology and Flexibility (1992) is concerned with forecasting the use of innovation within manufacturing industries. It assesses the factors that inhibit and facilitate the implementation of new technologies and organisational techniques. The focus of the study is on Brazilian industry, whose mixture of advanced and traditional social and economic structures makes its experience relevant to many other regions of the world. Based on interviews with over a hundred leading firms, it examines Brazilian innovators’ views as to the prospects for growth, the changing nature of competition, and the likely rates of diffusion for such ‘modernising innovations’ as computer-aided design, microelectronic process controllers, just-in-time and quality control.