In general, "factory science" has not been a prom- 

 inent feature of the Soviet industrial order. Histo- 

 rically, the organizational approach has emphasized 

 the separation of industrial research from production 

 as well as the centralization of R&D forces in insti- 

 tutes designed to serve the needs of the branch as a 

 whole rather than of individual enterprises. Conse- 

 quently, most enterprises lack adequate in-house R&D 

 facilities. The enterprise-level R&D system of fac- 

 tory laboratories, design offices, experimental shops, 

 and other scientific subdivisions serves primarily 

 the needs of current production. In fact, enterprise 

 scientific subdivisions are not classified under the 

 "science and science services sector" category of 

 economic and social organizations, and their activity 

 is not included in the national plan section for fi- 

 nancing research and design work. The organization 

 and structure of technical management within a typi- 

 cal enterprise is presented in Figure 9-12 . In many 

 instances, however, the enterprise R&D system does 

 play a vital role in the application of new technol- 

 ogy, in the creation of new products and processes, 

 the improvement of product quality or production ef- 

 ficiency, and the maintenance of quality control or 

 technological control of operations. 2 ° 



Associations 



Production associations ( proizvodstvennyye obyed- 

 ineniya — POs) and science-production associations 

 (nauchno-proizvodstvennyye obyedineniya — NPOs) are 

 two entities replacing the independent enterprises 

 as the basic units of industrial organization. Even- 

 tually, almost all of Soviet industry will be con- 

 verted to the associational form of management. By 

 the fall of 1976 there were more than 3000 POs in 

 industry. Though they incorporated less than 10 per- 

 cent of all enterprises, production associations al- 

 ready accounted for nearly 40 percent of total in- 

 dustrial output. At the same time, NPOs — a more se- 

 lective form of organization — numbered less than 120. 



The associations were created in part to acceler- 

 ate technological progress and to reduce the lead 

 times in the implementation of new technology. There- 



73 



