ABSTRACT
Our industrial society used to be a collection of independent stakeholders, linked by commercial connections: the brick producer sold bricks to the house builder, who sold houses to the real estate agent, who sold them to customers. Each stakeholder dealt with the problems arising in his or her business. No one was bothered by what happened to the product once delivered. Being able to deliver the product in the requested quantity was the challenge. The growth strategy of companies in this period, characterised as ‘fordism’, was to standardise products and processes and to increase production capacities.
