The History of Scientific Management Theories Essay

Scientific Management was first described by Frederick Taylor in the late 19th century. Its relevance to modern day management is widely debated in academic circles. In this essay, I will address the question of whether Scientific Management has a place today, in a 21st Century Knowledge Economy, or whether it belongs to a ‘different time and place. I will argue that much of modern management practice is derived from Taylor’s theories and that in this sense his work is very relevant. Next, I will examine the context in which Taylor developed his principles and contrast this with the contemporary context. Then I will evaluate the relevance of each of Taylor’s 4 Principles to today, with help from a

Frederick Taylor was an engineer who ran experiments in the 1880’s on the common manufacturing process of his time. His goal was to increase the productivity of the workers. The experiments measured the time to perform different tasks. He created recommendations for the workplace that became business standards and were enforced in the workplace. Businesses used these as a measure of productivity and rewarded wages and other rewards on a basis of performance. These changes created a shift in the workplace and a demand for higher compliance became the norm. Taylor helped create the need for standards in the workplace.

Let’s begin by analyzing F. W. Taylor. Taylor’s scientific method can be summed up as a systematic study of relationships between people and tasks to increase efficiency (Jones and George 2015). There are four principles involved in this method: (1) Study the way workers perform their tasks, gather all the informal job knowledge that workers possess, and experiment with ways of improving the ways that tasks are performed. This step has the similar attributes of the organizing and controlling tasks discussed earlier in that the controlling task also involves evaluating the division of labor. (2) Codify the new methods of performing tasks into written rules and standard operating procedures. This step is very much about the organizing task. Although there are written rules, this aspect diverges from the leading

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

Taylorism is a concept made by Fredrick Taylor.He developed principles to increase efficiency in the work place.for example; by analyzing each task individually,he was able to find the right combinations of factors that yielded large increase in production.

Taylorism, which is actually a method adopted and named after the US Industrial Engineer Frederick Winslow Taylor, who in his 1911 book 'Principles Of Scientific Management' laid down the fundamental principles of large-scale manufacturing through assembly-line factories.

All these adoptions gave rise to a new management school of thought centered around a more productive work place, which Taylor considered to be “maximum prosperity” (Taylor, 1911). Taylor firmly believed in developing “captains of industry” rather than waiting on natural-born leaders to come along (Taylor, 1911). He also recognized a need for more involvement from the supervisors in the workplace to help eliminate what he referred to as soldiering, or, laxed employee output. He said, “The 30 percent to 100 percent increase in wages which the workmen are able to earn beyond what they receive under the old type of management, coupled with the daily intimate shoulder to shoulder contact with the management, entirely removes all cause for soldiering” (Taylor, 1911).

Frederick W. Taylor's scientific management principles include: Dividing responsibility for work from workers to managers. The manager is the planner and the job designer, the worker is the person who performs the task; Use scientific methods to determine the most effective way of doing things, dividing the work for the worker appropriately, specifying how to accomplish the task; Choose the best person to perform the work as planned; Train employees effectively; Monitor workers to ensure appropriate workflows and from there to achieve corresponding results.

Frederick W. Taylor’s stared working in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. He started the Scientific Management movement, and he and his associates were the first people to examine the work process scientifically. They all developed scientific management the earliest people of scientific management were Frederick W. Taylor’s (1856-1915), Frank Gilbreth (1868-1924), and Lillain Gilbreth (1878-1972). They studied how the work was performed, and they looked at how this affected worker productivity. He believed that increased efficiency could be achieved by selecting the right people for the job and training them to do it in exact terms in the one best

Probably the most widely cited example of Taylor’s scientific management was the pig iron experiment’ -6th edition management pg 41. Providing incentives, the right people, the right equipment and his scientific analysis Taylor increased productivity of the pig iron from 47 to 4 tons. ‘using similar approaches to other jobs, Taylor was able to define the ‘one best way’ for doing each job. He could then, after selecting the right people for the job, train them to do it precisely in this one best way’ 6th edition pg

According to Frederic Taylor in 1900, the scientific management style also known as “taylorism” if “individuals were given precisely defined set of tasks” with” clear set of objectives” then “they would calculate the benefits of improving their output and their productivity would rise” (Maund,p.94). Other principals indicated that to perform each job with the standard methods should be developed. Taylor believed that each trained worker with the sufficient support would determine the best way of performance.

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

Taylor's own name for his approach was scientific management. This sort of task-oriented optimization of work tasks is nearly ubiquitous today in industry, and has made most industrial work menial, repetitive, tedious and depressing; this can be noted, for instance, in assembly lines and fast-food restaurants. Ford's arguments began from his observation that, in general, workers forced to perform repetitive tasks work at the slowest rate that goes unpunished. This slow rate of work (which he called "soldiering", but might nowadays be termed by those in charge as "loafing" or "malingering" or by those on the assembly line as "getting through the day"), he opined, was based on the observation that, when paid the same amount, workers will tend to do the amount of work the slowest among them does: this reflects the idea that workers have a vested interest in their own well-being, and do not benefit from working above the defined rate of work when it will not increase their compensation. He therefore proposed that the work practice that had been developed in most work environments was crafted, intentionally or unintentionally, to be very inefficient in its execution. From this he posited that there was one best method for performing a particular task, and that if it were taught to workers, their productivity would go up.

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

He saw it as the task of managers to devise a system which would maximise efficiency. This would generate the profit to enable the workers to be paid a higher wage. Taylor's view of human nature was that of ‘economic man'. In other words people were only motivated by the economic motives of self-interest. Therefore if I was to use this to motivate the employees of the supermarket chain I can best motivate them by offering an incentive or a threat. For example I can use the time and motion study by observing and recording the workers on what, when and how they carry out their tasks and then identify the most efficient workers and see how they achieve greater efficiency. After identifying these workers I could devise a pay scheme to reward those who compete or beat the targets, but penalise the ones which cannot or will not achieve productivity. This theory has been used by Henry Ford for the mass production of motor cars, as well as communist factories in Easter Europe, China and Russia who imitated Taylor's methods. In all of these cased the result was a huge improvement in productivity, though it was commonly the case that workers did eventually rebel against being treated like machines.