Who Is Frederick Taylor

Frederick Taylor’s fundamental thoughts on scientific management dated back to early 1880s when he was employed at Midvale Steel Company and observed his coworkers “soldiering” at work. In the following two decades, he moved around different companies while developing his management theory

Over the years many articles have been written regarding scientific management and Frederick w. Taylor, 3 examples of these articles will be analysed and discussed in the further paragraphs of this essay. Wrege, C. D. and Stotka, A. M. wrote an article concerning the relationship between Taylor and his assistant Morris L. Cooke and the evidence that shows Taylor used much of Cooke’s own research and study for his publication of ‘Principles of Scientific Management’. Blake A. M. and Moseley J. L. undertook research which discovered that Taylor’s principles are still being used in business systems one hundred years after Taylor’s death. Darmody, Peter B. wrote his article regarding Henry L. Gantt and Frederick Taylor as the pioneers of scientific management, Darmody speaks highly of Taylor and Gantt, and agrees with many of their opinions.

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.

Scientific Management is also known as Taylorism. Fredrick Winslow Taylor wanted to divide the work process into small, simple and separate steps (Division of Labor). Division of Labor meant every worker only had one or two steps, this was created to boost productivity. Taylor also believed in Hierarchy, he wanted a clear chain of command that separated the managers from workers. He did this so managers would design work process and enforced how the work was performed and employees would simply follow directions. Taylor wanted to select and train high performing workers or first-class employees and match them to a job that best suited them. Taylor believed the most productive workers should be paid more. Employees who could not meet the new higher standard were fired.

What are the main features of Taylor’s approach to ‘Scientific Management” and what criticisms have been made of it? Do firms use scientific management today?

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

The central theme of this essay will deal with the role of Taylorism or scientific management in a specific organization. The primary focus will be to critically discuss how the various methods of scientific management are applicable to the chosen organization, which in this case will be Ford Motors. The essay will describe F.W. Taylor's early work life and techniques of scientific management and its success. It will then go on to discuss the production methods at Ford Motors prior and post the application of the management principles along with their benefits and criticisms.

Scientific management, which is also known as Taylorism, is based on the systematic study of work relations in contrast to reliance on preconceived notions and hunch. One of the underlying assumptions concerning this management approach is that the worker is a biological machine; the “typical economically motivated worker” (Frederick Winslow Taylor, Miller and Form, 1964). The four principles devised by Taylor were: 1. Using science for each element of work to replace old unwritten rules by setting up accurate time and motion study. 2. Managers should select and train workers based on controlled experiments. 3. Both managers and workers are adhering to a system based on scientific equality and using “wages and other rewards linked to achievement of „optimum goals. – measures of work performance and output; failure to achieve these would in contrast result in loss of earnings” (Modern Management Theories and Practices, 2004). 4. Job fragmentation is important because this approach aims for optimum efficiency which could be achieved by deskilling.

The year 1911 saw Frederick Winslow Taylor publish a book titled ‘The principles of scientific management’ in which he aimed to prove that the scientific method could be used in producing profits for an organization through the improvement of an employee’s efficiency. During that decade, management practice was focused on initiative and incentives which gave autonomy to the workman. He thus argued that one half of the problem was up to management, and both the worker and manager needed to cooperate in order to produce the greatest prosperity.

Frederick Winslow Taylor (1865 - 1915) define Scientific Management or Taylorism with 4 principles as explained in appendix A.

The productivity under Taylor’s method dramatically increased and costs of the manufactured goods were reduced by 1/10 to 1/20 of the previous manufactured cost. These changes allowed more people to purchase the goods [6]. It looks like the scientific management theory was the perfect solutions to the problems in organizations in the 20th century. But is scientific management appropriate in a modern world? The next section will look at pros and cons of this theory and the use of scientific management in today’s organizations.

Taylorism denies the fact that managers can chose from a variety of strategies and in many cases can be flexible in their approach to the workforce. This methodology will also be changed and an improvement will be arranged from my end.

Despite many criticisms, and a wealth of newer theories on the topic of managing people, Taylorism (i.e. Scientific Management) is alive and well in the 21st century.

This is demonstrated mainly in the fast­food industry where there is a list of methods to

Taylorism is a management system which was popular in the late 19th century. It was designed to increase efficiency by breaking down and specialising repetitive tasks. This is exhibited as mentioned in ‘Selection and Development: A new perspective on some old problems’ that several jobs presently no longer consist of clusters of similar tasks, but are now process based collections of activities (Harrington, Hill & Linley 2005). According to Weber’s foundation of organisation theory; bureaucracy was portrayed as an “instrument or tool of unrivalled technical superiority which entailed charismatic, traditional and rational authority” (1978, cited in Clegg 1994). Thereafter, other theories derived based on the instrument being used as a form of manipulation. This is evident in Knights & Roberts’ (1982) concept of human resource management and staff misunderstanding the nature of power, treating it as if it were an individual possession, as opposed to a relationship between people (Knights & Roberts 1982). Subsequently, this led to the establishment of unions and increasing cooperative resistance in the workplace as employees seek change in the occupational structure (Courpasson & Clegg 2012). The change in this occupational structure was based around the ‘superior-inferior’ concept where managers prioritise their own success