In Italy, like Japan, a dual industrial structure is crucial to the development of factory automation. Technological applications differ between small, owner-managed, firms and larger, more highly capitalised ones. Japanese dualism made possible the supply of general-purpose CNC machines to the small ‘secondary sector’ firms, and specialised use of FMS for cost-saving economies in the larger firms. In Italy the organisation of very small firms is more institutionalised, and their character is even more significant, for they have re-established the vitality of workshop over the Fordist logic of the factory. This technological trajectory contrasts with conventional commentaries which portray the past and future path of factory organisation (cf. Bell 1972; Kaplinsky 1984; Jaikumar 1986) as a sort of technological evolutionism: an increasing scale of automatic control and complexity; a path leading from NC machine-tools to fully computer-integrated operations, through systems such as FMS. A uniform adoption of small-batch production technology is presumed. However, we saw in chapter 4 that the earlier success of CNC machine-tools arose only out of competition between CNC, GT and integrated cells. In Italy the greater compatibility of CNC with workshop principles seemed so important that commentators such as Sabel proclaimed craft-based flexible specialisation as the successor to the Fordist logic.

Japan showed the possibility of a dual trajectory with corresponding differences in the accompanying production paradigms. In Italy, too, larger firms and plants do indeed aim for CIM-type developments, while smaller ones adopt equipment such as CNC or CAD for special and selective uses: for use with continuing and varied amounts of traditional human skills.