Fredrick Taylor and Theory of Management

Frederick Taylor

Scientific Management

Through Taylor's view of management systems, factories are managed through scientific methods instead of the use of the "rule of thumb" so widely used in the late nineteenth century, when Frederick Taylor devised his system of management and published the book "Scientific Management". The main elements of the Scientific Management as described by Taylor are; Time studies Functional or specialized supervision Standardization of tools and implements. Standardization of work methods separate planning function management, by use of the exception principle. The use of slide-rules, similar time-saving devices, and instruction cards for workmen. Task allocation and large bonus for successful performance, and the use of the 'differential rate' systems for classifying products and implements a routing system, a modern costing system, etc. etc. Taylor called these elements “merely the elements or details of the mechanisms of management" He saw them as extensions of the four principles of management; the scientific selection of the workman, intimate and friendly cooperation between the management and the men, the scientific education and development of the workman, and the development of a true science.

Taylor was against the risks managers make in attempting to make change in the way the organization operated. He believed in the importance of management commitment and the need for to gradually implement and educate. Taylor described that a really big problem with change consists of the mental attitude and habits of all those involved in management, as well as the workers. Taylor thought that there was one and only one method of work that maximized efficiency. This one best method and implementation can only be discovered or developed through scientific study and analysis. “This involves the gradual substitution of science for 'rule of thumb' throughout the mechanical arts." "Scientific management requires first, a careful investigation of each of the many modifications of the same implement, developed under rule of thumb; and second, after time and motion study has been made of the speed attainable with each of these implements, that the good points of several of them shall be unified in a single standard implementation, which will enable the workman to work faster and with greater easy than he could before. This one implement, then is the adopted as standard in place of the many different kinds before in use and it remains standard for all workmen to use until superseded by an implement which has been shown, through motion and time study, to be still better." The most difficult part of using scientific however was the lack of education with lower management, and workers. A large part of the factory population was composed immigrants who could not comprehend English. Taylor thought supervisors and workers who had low levels of education were not qualified to dictate or prioritize how work was to be performed. Taylor's solution was to separate decision making from the actual execution. "In almost all the mechanic arts the science which underlies each act of each workman is so great and amounts to so much that the workman who is best suited to actually doing the work is incapable of fully understanding this science...” Taylor created planning departments, staffed them with engineers, and gave them the responsibility to develop scientific methods for doing work. Establish goals for productivity. Establish systems of rewards for meeting the goals, and train the personnel in how to use the methods and thereby meet the goals.

Task allocation is another one of Taylor’s tools used in scientific management. This was actually one of the most controversial ideas Taylor produced. Task allocation is the concept that breaks tasks into smaller and smaller tasks in order to allow the determination of the optimum solution to the task to be presented. "The man in the planning room, whose specialty is planning ahead, invariably finds that the work can be done more economically by subdivision of the labor; each act of each mechanic, for example, should be preceded by various preparatory acts done by other men."

The biggest controversy against Taylor is that this reductionism approach to work dehumanizes the worker. The allocation of work "specifying not only what is to be done but how it is to done and the exact time allowed for doing it" is perceived as not allowing the worker to excel, or present their own ideas that might better the company. Taylor stated "The task is always so regulated that the man who is well suited to his job will thrive while working at this rate during a long term of years and grow happier and more prosperous, instead of