ABSTRACT
At present small subcontractors are under heavy external pressure to adapt to new demands from their customers. New requirements from predominantly large customers include greater flexibility of delivery, the undertaking of quality assurance tasks, integration in the customers' computer network, delivery of preassembled modules, and the contribution of their own development services. Therefore, small businesses are being forced to modernize their production technology and to restructure the entire organization of their company operations. In the case of small subcontractors the supposition was that a basis for cooperative behaviour existed in the similar customer demands directed at these businesses and in their accordingly very similar training needs. Cooperation on training tasks already exists in vocational training, in which different companies take on particular parts on a revolving basis. Training associations of this sort have established themselves in the past few years and are stirring growing interest.
