Increasing productivity reducing costs and the expansion

Increasing productivity, reducing costs, and the expansion of the complexity and value of the offered products (best price/performance ratio) was more pronounced in leading companies because of the adoption of organizational changes associated with headcount purchase hydroxychloroquine sulfate to rationalize production; changes in production processes targeting reduced costs; quality and productivity programs, and new routines linked to procedures, controls and best management practices; reduction of administrative levels and the centralization of project activities; the increasing importance of microelectronic automation in manufacturing and designing processes just in timing processes; production cells; and the increased acquisition of parts and components. The MT industry trajectory, in the last three decades, has sought the technological concentration and consolidation of leading, foreign and domestic companies, which have acquired R&D capabilities and which have constantly invested in innovation. The available information indicates that the leading companies fulfill most of the domestic market demands and almost all exportation ones. These companies believed that the combination of investment in R&D, licensing and the development of their own technologies showed to be a consistent technological strategy for the long-term growth. That would be the competitive strategy of companies categorized as “leaders” by Erber and Vermulm (1993) and Vermulm (1996). However, there are still differences among the market sectors supplied by foreign companies and leading national companies. MT foreign manufacturers focus on producing multi-station machines and machining centers for multinational corporations, whereas local companies produce CNC lathes as well as turning and machining centers for local companies. Small manufacturers of serial goods were the most affected by the trade liberalization. Their production scale would not economically face production diversification. There were also the manufacturers of medium complexity level goods produced in batches, which price/performance mix would not be competitive against the imports. Other companies have left the industry or became suppliers, representatives, etc., due to various reasons: low economic growth and insufficient investment in the 1990s; late adoption of the electronic paradigm; high productive diversification and/or because they had low production scales and financial issues. These companies presented lower accumulated R&D capabilities and some of them sought to achieve process innovations and organizational changes aimed at reducing costs. However, these innovations and changes were unfortunately insufficient against the imports competition and the new competition regime. Erber and Vermulm (1993) and Vermulm (1996) characterized the competitive strategies set by these companies as “subservient” and/or “passive survival.” Therefore, companies with deep knowledge and great financial strength excelled for productivity gains and competitiveness through specialization, larger production scale and sales volume. In general, these companies underwent a specialization process, and concentrated their production in lower number of MT families with better quality, higher technological content and lower prices, thus complementing imports and/or licensing goods. Specialization and exports fulfilled the complementary relationship by means of the international trade of products such as presses, machining centers and CNC lathes. This competitive heterogeneity has as its underlying cause the technological heterogeneity regarding the different technological learning and the innovative efforts undertaken between both the MT manufacturers and users. Sophisticated domestic buyers of capital goods may have strong influence on innovation patterns, given their important role in the development, testing and modification of such goods, which enables information flows, tacit knowledge and skills. Therefore, according to Smith (1776), only the size of the demand is important, however, we believe that its structure and level of sophistication are also relevant. As the demand structure and users’ technological capabilities are crucial to the MT companies, the MT manufactures’ market structure and technological performance are endogenously generated by three groups of fundamental determinants: the sources and nature of technological opportunities; the nature of user’s requirements, the actual and potential markets; and the companies’ ability of appropriating the profits from private investments in R&D (Dosi et al., 1993, p. 106).