I wouldn’t normally post something like this, except for the subject matter: the Toyota assembly line in Valenciennes, France. Stéphane Couturier is a photographer who tries to capture urban and industrial scenes as organic living forms.
Others have found strong metaphors between the Toyota Production System and the organization of natural processes, but these photographs are, well, just cool (to me at least). See the others at this link: http://www.prixpictet.com/2010/view/995
The artist’s statement seems to have suffered a bit in translation, but the last phrase sums up a Toyota plant:
In front of the Toyota factory assembly line, that is say confronted by a veritable metaphor of movement that is perpetual and implacable as is today’s technological world, rationalized, disembodied, automated and more and more subject to the silent and ruthless profit logic, Stéphane Couturier knows that reality is no longer made up of isolated things, of fixed geometrical shapes, but that it has become a reality of flux, in continuous movement and transformation.
Cool pics, I just wanted to share them.
Excellent photos Mark, thanks for sharing.
Kind regards,
Simon.
Interesting pictures.
Wow, what a great description of a lean factory; “a reality of flux, in continuous movement and transformation.”
I’m thinking “transformation” in the context of lean means improvement.