Un cantiere navale per il mediterraneo. tecnologia, organizzazione e identit? navalmeccanica a Monfalcone

The Monfalcone shipyard was one of the last plants built inside the Italian economic space, and one of the largest. The objective of building in Monfalcone a shipyard for the Mediterranean, able to satisfy the larger part of Italian shipbuilding needs, was also confirmed after the First and the Second World War, with some difficulties during the Thirties in overcoming the global crisis. During the Fifties, the Monfalcone shipyard became a sort of laboratory-plant, with the aim of bettering the entire national shipbuilding. Its size became at the same time a handicap (the public ownership could not accept the massive dismissal of workforce) and an opportunity, because it led to a long lasting quest for technological innovation, competitiveness and new products and practices. In the Sixties, the attempt to realize a hybridization between local traditions and new production logics coming from Japan was not a complete success, due to some misunderstandings that led mainly to acquire the most superficial aspects of the Japanese model, giving less importance to the structural elements. This was a programming error that created a significant pressure over the workforce, with effects that proved to be negative until the Eighties.