ORGANIZATION
FAVI
The French automotive parts manufacturer whose CEO Jean-François Zobrist eliminated the entire management layer and organized the factory around self-managing customer-focused teams — the only European competitor in its market to sustain profitability against Chinese competition.
FAVI is a French manufacturer of gearbox forks and other automotive parts founded in 1957 and transformed in 1983 when Jean-François Zobrist became CEO and systematically eliminated the management hierarchy. The factory was reorganized around self-managing teams of fifteen to thirty-five workers, each dedicated to a specific customer (Volvo, Volkswagen, Audi). Each team handles its own scheduling, quality control, purchasing, and hiring. The transformation was dramatic and sustained: FAVI became the only European supplier in its market segment to maintain profitability against Chinese low-cost competition, precisely because its teams could adapt to changing customer needs in hours rather than in the weeks required by hierarchical approval chains.
In The You On AI Field Guide
Zobrist's transformation of FAVI was not theoretical. He took over an organization with standard French industrial management — layers of supervisors, complex procedures, conflict between workers and management — and concluded that the management apparatus was the obstacle, not the solution, to the organization's problems. His first