The Father Of Scientific Management

Frederick Taylor (1917) developed scientific management theory (often called "Taylorism") at the beginning of this century. His theory had four basic principles: 1) find the one "best way" to perform each task, 2) carefully match each worker to each task, 3) closely supervise workers, and use reward and punishment as motivators, and 4) the task of management is planning and control.

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

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.

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.

4. Divide work equally between managers and workers, so that the managers apply scientific management principles to planning the work and the workers

Taylor believed that managers should manage the organisation for example assign tasks to their workers and the workmen or women should perform these tasks. Also, having workers perform single or limited tasks eliminated the long training period required to train craftsmen, who were replaced with lesser paid but more productive unskilled workers. ‘all day long the management work almost side by side with the men, helping, encouraging, and smoothing the way for them, while in the past they stood on one side, gave the man but little help, and threw on to them almost the entire responsibility as to methods, implements, speed, and harmonious

7. Training employees and other authorized users are important in an Organization and maintenance of security procedures.

Several modern management theories have been shown to have their roots stemming from the ideologies of the scientific management theory. The basic principles of scientific management include standardised work activity based on measurement and formulae, workers are matched to tasks, coordination of activities in order to execute a number of related tasks and separation of planning and execution with the aim of maximum output. (4) The scientific management theory explores the idea that managers should manage and the workers should work. The industrial revolution era brought the need to bring about an increase in the effective rate of output and productivity and that led to the introduction of the scientific management theory by Frederick W. Taylor. Taylor was an engineer interested in efficiencies through work measurement and coordination of tasks and focused on the problems of dividing up labour tasks. He believed that the most efficient methods for completing a task and for the selection, development and motivation of employees could be scientifically determined, Taylor concluded that there was one best way to achieve things (4). Taylor had four

This led to lowered overall productivity and systematic underproduction. Hence, this provoked Taylor to develop scientific management. The principles behind Tayor’s management concept were based on the idea that workers put in the least amount of effort and that they are motivated solely by material gains. As a result, the theory implied that greater external control is needed for more productive operations. Furthermore, the theory basically built an instrumental view of human behaviour making the human factor a mere component in a machine (Morgan, 2006) . Taylor’s concept was considered a milestone in the development of management as it proposed a different, efficiency-orientated approach that relied on how work was organized. From his point of view surely it was the increased productivity, predictability and control of the system that made the idea better. H e himself states that if applied in a correct manner his methods would lead to far larger and better results (Taylor, 2007) . However, when the scientific management theory was applied the negative effects of the system manifested. Frederick Taylor was even called “enemy of the working man” because of the principles he introduced (Morgan, 2006) . The separation between execution and conception and tightened control led to workers going to strike or leaving their jobs. Furthermore, the fact that the applied system presumed that workers had no other

Scientific management theories proposed in this reading do apply to contemporary management functions. Although many of these theories could be argued as common knowledge today, when Fredrick Taylor established them they were prehistoric terms. He wanted to find out ‘one best way’ for everything in the workplace. Taylor’s most well known experiment was the pig-iron experiment (Locke, 1982 ). The experiment involved workers loading ‘pigs’ of iron on to rail cars. He knew their current daily output, but believed more was possible using scientific management. This was done due to many things. First of all putting the right person on the job with the right tools and equipment. In today’s management people hire the best person they can for the job. Secondly he had the worker follow his instructions exactly. This is also normal in today’s management functions, because people do things the way the employer wants them to. Taylor also motivated successful and productive workers with higher pay (Locke, 1982). This is also very common in today, with higher salary packages for good workers and pay increases for productivity fairly common. This improves employer and employee relationships by making the employee feel valued.

Frederick Taylor is an American individual who used his mechanical and engineering wisdom to create a theory called The scientific management theory. Taylor aims and scopes will be identified throughout this writing and identify how this was achieved. His theory was well thought of as it has been used and adapted over time, consequently it has improved the management skills in the place of work for many people. He got his knowledge from the steel industry that he worked in, this was used to evaluate the working statistics of individuals work practice in the place of work. Frederick Taylor then used his personal collected data to execute the issues of poor working practice. Taylor then changed the way the workplace was managed, he used his theory to improve efficiency and production in the work place. His theory turned out to be very popular and effective attracting attention from many people. This was proven and his principals where put into practice by the cole shovelling scientific exercise. ‘P28 Cole and Kelly 7th edition’

« I am hiring you for your strength and physical capacities. We don’t ask you thinking; some people are already here to do it » said Taylor to one of his employees in summing up his philosophy. During the 19th century, the industrial revolution spread in developed countries, substituting agriculture for large-scale industry and the same problems emerged everywhere: laziness, obstruction and a gap of knowledge between managers (white-collar workers) and the other workers (blue-collar workers). Old management principles, which fit with mass production and profit maximisation are not anymore adapted and need to be

 Taylor conducted a number of experiments in the workplace, resulting in the development of four principles of scientific management (“Taylorism”). (MindTools, n.d.). Using these four principles or key features of Frederick Taylor’s rather ruthless and strongly task-focused theory to analyse the job performance of Jim Young, Director SkillPower Ltd, I have identified the following:

Frederic Winslow Taylor (1865-1915) was an engineer and most importantly an innovator who affects the way many organizations function even today. In his time he introduced the term of scientific management which refers to a system where leaders are capable of managing and workers are able to execute the tasks given by the managers in the most efficient and productive way in a mass production environment with the basic element of job specialization (McKenna, 2012, p.7). According to Taylor, scientific management should include the selection of the best qualified people to work in a company, the incentives to work harder and as a result more efficient by awarding them with higher salaries as well as the authority given to the managers to control

Many of classical writers were concerned with the important of management as a means of increasing productivity and high level of output. A major contributor to this approach was F.W. Taylor (1856 – 1917). He believed that in the same way that there is a best machine for each job, so there is a best working method by which people should undertake their jobs. “ONE BEST WAY “F.W.Taylor. He saw workers soldiering or deliberately working beneath their potential and designed a 4-step method to overcome this problem.