ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the introduction of numerically controlled (NC) and computerised numerically controlled (CNC) technologies in Brazil from the point of view of the machine tool manufacturers. Based on data and information gathered in the first half of the 1980s, it looks back at how the earlier patterns of growth shaped opportunities for machine tool firms to master these new technologies. It also looks forward, questioning the prospects for local firms to move on to more sophisticated areas of machinery production that are certain to be required in the 1990s. The central theme is that the opportunities for development in the area of NC and CNC machinery – as in other areas – was and will continue to be profoundly limited by much the same factors that constrained the local machine tool sector’s earlier development. This perspective counters some of the more optimistic interpretations of indicators of growth and technological progress in Brazil’s machine tool sector as well as the more positive accounts of the role of government policy in information technology in Brazil.
