Burger King vs Scientific Management

Scientific management or "Taylorism" is an approach to job design, developed by Frederick Taylor (1856-1915) during the Second World War. With the industrial revolution came a fast growing pool of people, seeking jobs, that required a new approach of management. Scientific management was the first management theory, applied internationally. It believes in the rational use of resources for utmost output, hence motivating workers to earn more money. Taylor believed that the incompetence of managers was the major obstacle on the way of productivity increase of human labour. Consequently, this idea led to the need of change of management principles. On the base of research, involving analysing controlled experiments under various working

Scientific management is defined by (Robbins et al., 2012) as ‘an approach that involves using scientific methods to define the “one best way” for a job to be done’. Frederick W. Taylor is said to be the forefather of scientific management, during his time many people criticised Taylor and his work, however it is easy to see that many of his approaches are used in contemporary management systems. This essay will provide a review of the article ‘The Ideas of Frederick W. Taylor’, Academy of Management Review (Locke, E., 1982) which discusses the positives and negatives of Taylor’s theory. A further 3 articles will be analysed on the critiquing or support of scientific management and Taylor.

Scientific management was introduced by Fredrick Winslow Taylor in 1898. The basic attributes of this perspective were giving incentives to employees, training them in a standard method and developing a standard procedure of performing a task. These procedures were established by numerous studies and observations (Samson et al., 2012).

White Castle is driven by both scientific management and human relations. In the beginning of the film that we watched in class it was clear that White Castle was driven by a Scientific Management approach, utilizing formulas and rules to run its organization. White Castle’s management created an efficient way for cooking their hamburgers and also, how everything from the pickles down to the buns was placed on the burger. Even the factory showed that there had to be a scientific approach to get the bread cut and packaged. White Castle’s CEO E.W. Ingram III after visiting his restaurant as a worker, it was evident that human relations became a factor to drive and enabled employees to work more efficiently. Ingram realized this, he took note that the scientific approach was not going work alone, he realized taking the time to talk with workers and get an understanding of their

Scientific Management, or Taylorism, is a theory of management by F. W. Taylor that analysed how the highest economic efficiency, especially labour productivity, can be achieved, hence the greatest prosperity for both employers and employees. The four principles that he brought forward are the replacement of the ‘rule of thumb’ work method with a scientific way to study work, matching and training the most suitable person to do each particular job scientifically instead of leaving the workers to choose their own work and teach themselves, the provision of detailed instructions and standard operating procedures by the managers to workers to ensure “all of the work being done in accordance with the principles of the science” and the division of work between workers and managers, which managers are responsible for planning and supervising while workers are to complete the tasks they are assigned to.

Frederick Winslow Talyor developed a theory called the Scientific Management. It is a theory of management that analyse and improve work process, aiming to increase labour productivity. Scientific management methods are used to optimize productivity and simplifying the jobs so that workers could be trained to perform their task in one “best” way.

Frederick Winslow Taylor, a mechanical engineer born in Philadelphia, was responsible for putting together the system called Scientific Management. Taylor’s introduction of new ideas and methods in industrial engineering, distinctly in time and motion study, proved to be fruitful in improving productivity. Taylor outlined the methods and techniques of Scientific management in his book which was published in 1911. Taylor was not an admirer of the ‘rule of thumb’ principle. The rule of thumb concept means that management would implement methods within the enterprise, based on their past experiences. Hence, Taylor found this to be flawed, as specific outcomes were not guaranteed. Taylor’s main objective was to ensure that wastage and inefficiency

BK, on the other hand, uses the continuous chain broiler, with a capacity of 8 burgers per chain, where no human intervention is necessary because the patties enter the broiler on one end and come out on other end after 80 seconds. Furthermore, sandwich dressing is standardized at McD’s with lever based dispensers and portion controlled condiments. At BK, sandwich dressing is handled by employees using plastic squeeze bottles without pre-measured quantities. The lack of portion-controlled condiments at BK can result in different taste and quality of products in addition to wastage. Exhibit 5 and 6 reveal the operating results for McD’s and BK, respectively. McD’s is ahead of the game in the sandwich dressing department, Exhibit 6 shows that BK spends 1.1% of their sales in condiments wastage. BK also uses microwave ovens to maintain the “Made to Order” warm and fresh burgers. The use of microwave ovens result in a 2.1% increase in utility cost compared to McD’s. On the other hand, the cost of food at McD’s is 1.9% higher compared to BK because McD’s keeps finished goods inventory in a bin for 10 minutes before they are discarded. In addition, the paper used to wrap the burger contributes to higher food cost of 0.9% at McD’s.

Scientific management is an organizational theory that was discovered by Frederick Taylor. He was concerned with scientifically developing the worker to become more efficient. Taylor wrote a book called, The Principle of Scientific Management (Rimer, Waring, Wrege, & Greenwood, 1993). In this book he highlights four major principles to his theory. The first is that there is one best way to do every job. This is determined through time and motion studies to determine what’s the most effective way. The second point is proper scientific selection of workers. Thirdly, is properly training the workers in what is deemed as the best practice. The last point is defining the inherent differences and relationships between manager and worker. Managers should be in charge of administrative tasks, as well as being the thinkers, and planners of the organization. Workers on

In all, I feel that Scientific Management brings more benefits to the owners or shareholders of the company than to the workers that are working in the company, as I feel that workers are the people who build the companies, without them no companies can survive, to me it 's more essential the happiness of the workers than the profit margin of the company. The ideal scenario is where the company looks after the interest or welfare of their workers and the workers looks after the company 's interest, where both side wins. It 's the company lost if they fail to retain staffs as the

During my 18 years of working for Kraft Foods/Oscar Mayer there were two production plant managers. Each plant manager practiced differing styles of management and had different approaches for plant production. Through analysis of the reading and with further research, I believe each manager practiced approaches with similarities and some modifications to the historical approaches of the assigned materials.

With those evocative words, Frederick W. Taylor had begun his highly influential book; “The Principles of Scientific Management” indicating his view regarding management practices. As one of the most influential management theorists, Taylor is widely acclaimed as the ‘father of scientific management’. Taylor had sought “the ‘one best way’ for a job to be done” (Robbins, Bergman, Stagg & Coulter, 2003, p.39). Northcraft and Neale (1990, p.41) state that “Scientific management took its

Scientific management (also called Taylorism, the Taylor system, or the Classical Perspective) is a theory of management that analyzes and synthesizes workflow processes, improving labor productivity. The core ideas of the theory were developed by Frederick Winslow Taylor in the 1880s and 1890s, and were first published in his monographs, Shop Management (1905) and The Principles of Scientific Management (1911).[1] Taylor believed that decisions based upon tradition and rules of thumb should be replaced by precise procedures developed after careful study of an individual at work.

Frederick W. Taylor is one of the more widely recognized names in the management literature. Far more rare, however, is an accurate

It creates unemployment for starters who don’t have any skill and want to work and learn.