New types of relation between buyer and suppliers companies have been implemented, leading to different kinds of physical arrangement in industrial chains, and changing their economic and productive performance, the supply management, among others.This article discusses the relationship between Manufacturing Strategies (MSs) and forms of Work Organization (WOs) adopted by an engine assembler and nine of its supplierscompanies in the same industrial chain. , examining how the specific decisions of the assembly plant affects the decisions of those suppliers. The analysis has been carried out based on information collected from interviews with the managers responsible for the areas of manufacturing, quality, logistics and human resources. We focus specifically on the relations between an automaker and nine of its direct suppliers. It was observed that suppliers' competitive priorities are strongly conditioned by the buyer's strategy and that, although there may be a general trend towards a form of work organization, the pace of change in this area alters according to the suppliers's own manufacturing strategies, their human resources policies, the situation of the job market, and the relative power of the workers' unions.
Manufacturing strategy; work organization; automobile industry; competitive priorities; suplly chain
