ABSTRACT
The flexible manufacturing system is located in an enterprise constituting the production centre of a large industrial combine producing heavy building machines. The economic situation of the enterprise is quite complex. The main source of qualified labour supply for the enterprise is the system of factory schools training qualified workers and secondary technical schools. The analysis of innovation and modernisation processes in the enterprise indicates that most technological efforts are concentrated in the engineering factory, in which the final product is manufactured, while the production process in the metallurgical factory is based on obsolete technologies. Managers with a technical educational background, without any professional training in the field of production organisation and management, tend to treat technology as the only or perhaps the best means of achieving the enterprise's production goals. Enterprises producing consumer goods, facing conditions of severe market disequilibrium have never been interested in export, at least not in export on a large scale.
