Mass Production and the Beginnings of Scientific Management

In the late 19th century, when a period of social activism and economic reform, historically known as the Progressive Era (Maligned), coincided with the capitalistic expansion at an unprecedented rate, a series of ideas on eradicating systematic soldiering and increasing the overall productivity quiet sprouted at steel industry, later growing into the theories of scientific management in the next two decades. Scientific management, also known as Taylorism, was one of the earliest attempts to apply scientific methods to optimize of management and achieve economic efficiency. Its founder, Frederick Winslow Taylor, was also the prominent figure in the Efficiency Movement in the U.S. The principles of scientific management have shaped American industry and on management science in three major ways since the 1880s. On the corporate level, scientific management had streamlined manufacturing process; on the individual level, it instilled many fundamental management ideas into the American industry; as the leading thought during the Progressive Era, it laid the foundation for various disciplines, many of which serve as guidelines even for modern-day industries.

After the end of the Industrial Revolution, large corporations were beginning to grow in size and power in order to satisfy what seemed the endless demands for new goods and services. As corporations and labor forces grew, there was a need to develop a more systematic study of organization and management, known as management theory, the significant being Frederick Taylor's Principles of Scientific Management which involved the development of training workers through special incentives and compensation (Boone p.33). In general, early management scientists tended to believe that there was a single way to organize companies and manage employees. By the beginning of the 20th century, there were initial attempts for launching a systematic and

Re-engineering - deals with building the system of a business in a new way, which involves changing the mission and rules of the organization.

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?

Scientific management has also been criticised for not accounting for the employees in the organisation (Handy, 20) “but people had been left out of the equation – they were not so easily regimented.”, moreover this the management style also received a bad reputation (Brooks, 19) “Similarly, in Germany in 1912 they were greeted with considerable hostility, and in France (Renault) they resulted in strike action and violent

Teamwork: working collaboratively with people in a workplace creates a positive environment and atmosphere. Ensuring congruent attitude in and out of the workplace is very important as it helps reduce the risk of conflict among co-workers, or the supervisor(s). Teamwork helps build sensitivity to people with different cultural background.

Many people and companies have rejected the theory of scientific management that Frederic Taylor developed in the early 1900’s because it wasn’t working effectively for the companies. However as Rober Kanigel make clear in his biography of Frederick Taylor One Best Way the problem wasn’t with the theory of scientific management , but with the Frederic Taylor and his attempts at managing his own theories. Frederic Taylor was an engineer, a perfectionist; he didn’t have personality skills necessary to be an effective manager or leader. Someone how had these skills could manage a company well with his theory. What scientific management really is "a complete method of creative problem solving and decision

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

Reengineering in business refers to the basic rethinking and major redesign to the existing resources of an organization. It goes beyond the usual business improvisation by making radical redesigning of all the aspects of the company’s operations. Successful reengineering must first involve a high-level comprehensive and systematic of all the important aspects of the organization. At this stage the

Guidance: Many management textbooks claim that Taylor 's ideas are no longer appropriate, but consider whether an organization can operate without clear rules, hierarchy and division of labor. Many large and successful organizations, such as McDonalds hamburger chain or call centers, appear to use a modern version of scientific management. It would also be a good idea to consider whether these sort of generalizations can be applied in a global manner, or whether they tend to reflect the

From the 1950s to the 1960s, organizations continued to grow and became more complex during this timeframe. This is the beginning of the Science and Knowledge Era. The Human Resources movement appeared and managers recognized how important people actually were when it came to production and productivity. Goal setting, job performance evaluations as well as job descriptions were important tools that came about during this time (Business Matters, 2015).

All of these examples and many others function and are produced at a higher rate of efficiently due to Scientific Management. Frederick W. Taylor born on March 20, 1865 considered “the father of Scientific Management”. He strongly campaigned for less human interaction and more machine driven production, even going on to say “In the past the man has been first; in the future the system must be first” (Worthy, 1959, p. 73). One of the driving factors for Taylor’s scientific management was that he believed the industrial management of his day was run by individuals that had no professional amplitude Deming suggested that “management could be formulated as an academic discipline, and that the best results would come from the partnership between a trained and qualified management and a cooperative and innovative workforce” (Weisbord, 1987, p. 9). "Taylorism" became the first big management fad. Taylor 's scientific management consisted of four principles (Weisbord, 1987):

Scientific management or Taylorism refers to a school of thought on how organizations should be run, created in the early 20th century by Frederick Taylor. Taylor created Taylorism in an attempt to increase and improve efficiency in firms. There were five keys components in his theory:

‘Taylorism’ or ‘Scientific Management’ has been a prevalent idea in business theory since Frederick Winslow Taylor produced his “Principles of Scientific Management’ in 1911. The book was written in response to then President Theodore Roosevelt’s challenge to the American people to introduce new methods to create greater efficiency in the American workplace. Taylor’s idea was to ‘secure maximum prosperity for the employer, coupled with maximum prosperity for the employee’1. Meaning companies could not gain high levels of production without an initiative for the work force,

Scientific Management theory arose from the need to increase productivity in the U.S.A. especially, where skilled labor was in short supply at the beginning of the twentieth century. The only way to expand productivity was to raise the efficiency of workers.