Impact of Taylor and Ford on Organizations Today

Frederick W. Taylor worked across the United States in the first 15 years of the 20th century looking to solve production problems (Owens & Valesky, 2011, p. 67). He was an engineer in steel manufacturing and studied developed what what is now known as the four principles of scientific management. These principles spell out what both managers and workers are to do. Two important principles include having the management set goals, plan, and supervise workers, and the workers perform the work, and that organizations should establish the standard where management “sets the objectives and the workers cooperate in achieving them” (p. 67). Taylor’s principles are still used today by some organizational leaders who fight the movement that management should work as a team with the workers (pp. 67-68). Taylor’s principles have led to things such as strict discipline, the idea that workers must focus on their task with little or no interaction with colleagues, and the idea of incentive

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

Amazingly, productivity rapidly raised in the first 24 hours. The study concluded that for maximum productivity, the best worker had to be chosen to perform that task and had to be provided with training for efficient work. Every worker and his output had to be closely monitored and he had to be rewarded for greater productivity. Taylor also wanted to reduce conflicts between managers and workers by convincing them that they would benefit mutually from a rise in productivity, as this would favour society and the organisation as a whole.

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.

Taylors Method was known as the Time & Motion Studies. Time was the least amount of time it took to perform each task and even each part of each task, whereas motion was where the fewest numbers of motions required for each small task. Taylor wanted employees to work as if they were machines. From Taylor’s Theory to Taylorism the outcomes were that it boosted in productivity by 200% to 400%. More work was also accomplished with fewer people meant more profit for companies from Taylorism and the final outcome was that more consistent products were of higher quality (Frederick Taylor Scientific Management). In Frederick Winslow Taylor’s ‘The Principles of Scientific Management 1910, he states that ‘under the old

The fundamental theory behind scientific management is breaking down each part of a job to its science (Taylor). In the Principles of Scientific Management, Taylor talks about pig iron handlers, shoveling and bricklaying as a few examples in which he implemented scientific management. He proposed four important elements that are essential to scientific management. In this example Taylor discusses the science of bricklaying. First management must develop the science of bricklaying with standard rules of each task. Every task is designed to be perfect and standardized. The second element is selection and training. This step is important because Taylor wants an employee who is “first class,” meaning that they are the best at what they do, follow instructions and will not refuse to listen or adopt the new methods that management is executing. The third element is teaching the first class employee the science of bricklaying broken down by management. At this stage management is instructing the employee what to do, how to do it, and the best way to do it. Management is there to help them and watch that they are doing it “their” way and not

In 1982, General Motors closed “The Worst Plant in the World” in Fremont, California. In 1984, General Motors and Toyota opened up a joint venture operation in the same plant General Motors had closed just two years prior. The joint venture was called New United Motor Manufacturing Inc. (NUMMI). The concepts used for this new venture are those of Frederick Winslow Taylor and his time-and-motion regimentation. NUMMI’s newly implemented Taylorist procedures appear to encourage along with satisfaction and increased worker motivation.

Frederick W. Taylor was ahead of his time for his concept of Scientific management. It was a revolutionary way of running a business, that swept all over the globe, and his ideas were applicable to many different industries. Substituting disorder and conflict for a new untested method of control, cooperation, and science. Taylor understood there were no incentives for working harder. Knowing this, he payed workers based on output, allowing workers to make more money on any given day. It seemed like everyone would enjoy and prosper under this system, but that was not the case. Workers liked the opportunity to make more money in this system but many of them resisted this new idea. Being under constant supervision made work much harder for them.

Taylor furthermore emphasized on this method as it reduced the time taken between each activity since each worker was limited to doing a precise task. Thus, the worker was able to complete the job in the least possible time and reduce wastage. Along with improved efficiency, Taylor used scientific management techniques to make sure proper utilization of resources is taking place and wastage is being kept to a minimum (Salimath and Jones, 2011, pp. 85-86).

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.

Scientific management was first developed by an American, Frederick Winslow Taylor in the1880s ~1910s and has evolved a lot since then. It is a theory or school of thoughts about process improvement and management. It aims at maximizing efficiency, productivity, output with least cost and minimizing wastes. It was criticized as inhuman by many organizational theorists. However, it is widely applied in manufacturing industry and service industry in both developing and developed countries nowadays. This article is to investigate the reasons why scientific

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

There are a number of management theories that have changed the management business environment in the twentieth century. The theories have assisted managers to come up with better ways of management and organization of people. Managers have been able to increase profits, reduce costs and maximize efficiency. The purpose of this essay is to compare and contrast the contributions of scientific management and the human relations movement to the modern management. This essay will use Frederick Winslow Taylor’s theory on scientific management and Elton Mayo’s human relations theory. These two movements have been proven to increase productivity in the workplace (Mullins, 2005).

Taylor imagined that workers would be able to make out the relationship between completion of more work in units and the economic rewards been increased. Taylors work as described by (Buchanan and Huczynski, 2004) depicts how theories were to take place at shop floor levels, then how facts were substituted for opinion and guess work. Henri Fayol, his fellow classical writer had a different perception which looked at organisation from top to bottom. The pace setters of classical theories had engineering background hence derived theories with scientific approach. (Buchanan and Huczunski, 2004). (Cole, 2004) talks about how the production environment under the classical theory in America had created difficulties, where labour force were skint, uneducated, and in quest of making economic fortunes. (Lemak, 2004) point out how the classical management has had

The scientific management theory have an assumption that workers are lazy, not smart in analyzing tasks, only prefers simplified work and only works for money (Miller & Form, 1964). According to Taylor (2004), workers are unable figure out the most efficient way in doing work. Therefore, they are thought as replaceable working parts like a machine in the production line and can be trained to specialize in a certain procedure in the production. They are assumed to adopt the Protestant work ethic, working for long hours and not taking any breaks. Whenever a worker or a ‘part’ failed to perform its tasks, they