ABSTRACT
In Great Britain in the late 1970s there was an extremely high level of public, governmental and academic awareness of microelectronics as a new technology with possibly profound social and economic consequences. Manufacturing industry in Great Britain was under very significant competitive pressure from overseas manufacturers in both home and export markets. Manufacturing firms in Great Britain are rather highly concentrated, and therefore large compared to other European enterprises, but comprise a large number of relatively small plants. Significant feature of the industrial relations system in Great Britain for the introduction of new technology is its strong craft traditions. The full package of new technology being introduced in the company included a computer-aided-draughting package, a production planning program, and several computer numerical control (CNC) machine tools. It was generally accepted that CNC had reduced lead times in manufacture and improved quality and accuracy.
