agreste

Agreste cahiers n° 37 - mars 1999

Subject to market demands, food industry firms make use of new forms of management with the purpose of improving the quality of their products as well as reducing their costs.

Subject to market demands, food industry firms make use of new forms of management with the purpose of improving the quality of their products as well as reducing their costs. These new measures make a large circulation of the information through computer networks necessary. In this respect, computerisation facilitates a better adjustment of production to qualitative or quantitative market fluctuations. It allows the firms to reconcile a production regulated by standards (ISO standards and other forms of certification) and a structure responsive of market needs (« just in time » systems). Changes in management and computerisation are thus complementary. A typology made from such alterations permits to distinguish adaptable firms from the more traditional ones. So 40 % of firms trend toward more flexibility thanks to computer networks, and nearly 20 % intensify the rationalisation of their organisation while a large group of firms (over 40 %), less involved in those new mechanisms, holds steady.