현대자동차 엔지니어의 숙련 성격과 조직역량 변화: 생산기술과 공정기술의 관계를 중심으로

This paper examined how the nature of skills and organizational capabilities of Korean automobile industry production technology engineers have changed, focusing on the relationship between Hyundai Motor's production design technology and process technology engineers. Process technology engineers (or technician) from high school graduates in the early stages of industrialization efficiently solved quality problems arising from the development and production of new cars while closely communicating and cooperating with production technology engineers and workers on the shop floor. The horizontal organizational capabilities of production engineering were in operation. However, as automation and informatization were introduced and outsourced since the mid-1990s, the nature of engineer skills gradually increased the proportion of theoretical elements and problem- solving skills rather than empirical ones. In line with this trend of change in the nature of skills required, as large-scale recruitment of university graduates was carried out, they took up the majority of the process technology department and instead high school graduates underwent marginalized changes. Furthermore, the unstable labor- management relations further promoted such reorganization while making communication and cooperation between process technology engineers and workers on the shop floor difficult. Since the late 1990s, Hyundai Motor's production engineering has been reorganized into a vertical hierarchy that leads to production design technology engineers, process technology engineers, and workers on the shop floor.