Knitwear Production in Italy

Paper Summary:

Italian knitwear firms use an ancient method of production by which homeworkers use their own tools and workplaces to convert raw and semi-finished materials owned by large manufacturers into finished goods. This is quite different from the factory-oriented output used by other clothing and textile industries in modern industrialized nations. The paper shows that within both the Marxist and liberal paradigms of economic development, this sort of small-scale production would eventually give way to larger and more complex organizational forms, yet these firms persist in following the old ways. The paper examines the issue of how efficient can this method be and argues that Italian home production in this industry has shown that it can be as efficient as the factory production of knitwear represented by larger firms such as Benetton.

From the Paper:

"The basic steps in the production process are the same in the knitwear factory as in home production, though the different steps are all performed in the same locale and may be performed by machine instead of by individual artisan workers. These processes are concentrated in one place, but this also entails a larger bureaucratic structure to see to it that materials are acquired, cloth woven, goods produced, and orders filled according to specifications. Many of these steps are accomplished with less direct involvement by any given worker and without the personal touch that is often provided by the homeworker."

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