How Does Manufacturing Know How Add Value to the Industrial Internet? Machinery and Automobile Producers in a Global Information Economy
Gary Herrigel
Paul Klapper Professorship in the College and the Division of Social Sciences Department of Political Science
University of Chicago
Much of the debate on the future of manufacturing revolves around the degree to which it is a driver of innovation. Many are skeptical that mature sectors, such as mechanical engineering or automobiles, can drive innovation on their own and are therefore ripe for disruption from the outside, in particular from new ICT technologies and the digital platform economy. The outsiders, however, are guided by a relatively condescending view that manufacturing is primarily a cost and not a relavant generator of value. This view is contrasted by the self-understanding of many successful machinery and auto producers, who believe that their comparative advantage is in their manufacturing prowess, its centrality to their overall innovation strategies, and in their historically proven skills in embracing and integrating ICT technology in to what they do. The paper will analyze German, American and Chinese innovation strategies in traditional auto and machinery manufacturing sectors, as well as the industrial policies of their respective governments, in the area of the digitization of manufacturing technology and processes (Industrie 4.0 and the Industrial Internet). Theoretically, the paper will be focused on the way in which traditional manufacturers have developed governance architectures that foster learning, continuous optimization and organizational self-recomposition.