ABSTRACT
Zilverstad Silversmithing is a small Dutch company which has to cope with fierce international competition. This chapter gives a detailed report of the organisational journey undertaken by the firm in order to safeguard its future. The report shows that even small firms can be trapped in their development by too much complexity in and too little of control over their production processes. Zilverstad simplified its organisation by the introduction of a model of flow-oriented production. This opened the way for pushing the control capacity to the lowest possible level in the organisation: the selfmanaging task group. The firm made use of the principles and instruments of a Dutch design approach: Socio-Technical Organisation Design (STOD). This approach enables the members of the organisation to redesign their own working environment.
