Frederick Winslow Taylor
By far the most influential person of the time and someone who has had
an impact on management service practice as well as on management thought
up to the present day, was F. W. Taylor. Taylor formalized the principles
of scientific management, and the fact-finding approach put forward and
largely adopted was a replacement for what had been the old rule of thumb.
He also developed a theory of organizations which altered the
personalized autocracy which had only been tempered by varying degrees of
benevolence, such as in the Quaker family businesses of Cadbury's and
Clark's.
Taylor was not the originator of many of his ideas, but was a pragmatist
with the ability to synthesize the work of others and promote them
effectively to a ready and eager audience of industrial managers who were
striving to find new or improved ways to increase performance.
At the time of Taylor's work, a typical manager would have very little
contact with the activities of the factory. Generally, a foreman would be
given the total responsibility for producing goods demanded by the
salesman. Under these conditions workmen used what tools they had or could
get and adopted methods that suited their own style of work.
F.W. Taylor's contributions to scientific management
By 1881 Taylor had published a paper that turned the cutting of metal
into a science. Later he turned his attention to shoveling coal. By
experimenting with different designs of shovel for use with different
material (from 'rice' coal to ore) he was able to design shovels that would
permit the worker to shovel for the whole day.
In so doing, he reduced the number of people shoveling at the Bethlehem
Steel Works from 500 to 140. This work, and his studies on the handling of
pig iron, greatly contributed to the analysis of work design and gave rise
to method study.
To follow, in 1895, were papers on incentive schemes. A piece rate
system on production management in shop management, and later, in 1909, he
published the book for which he is best known, Principles of Scientific
Management.
A feature of Taylor's work was stop-watch timing as the basis of
observations. However, unlike the early activities of Perronet and others,
he started to break the timings down into elements and it was he who coined
the term 'time study'.
Taylor's uncompromising attitude in developing and installing his ideas
caused him much criticism. Scientific method, he advocated, could be
applied to all problems and applied just as much to managers as workers. In
his own words he explained:
"The old fashioned dictator does not exist
under Scientific Management. The man at the head of the business under
Scientific Management is governed by rules and laws which have been
developed through hundreds of experiments just as much as the workman is,
and the standards developed are equitable."
Objectives of Scientific Management
The four objectives of management under scientific management were as
follows:
- The development of a
science for each element of a man's work to replace the old
rule-of-thumb methods.
- The scientific
selection, training and development of workers instead of allowing
them to choose their own tasks and train themselves as best they
could.
- The development of a
spirit of hearty cooperation between workers and management to ensure
that work would be carried out in accordance with scientifically
devised procedures.
- The division of work
between workers and the management in almost equal shares, each group
taking over the work for which it is best fitted instead of the former
condition in which responsibility largely rested with the workers. Self-evident
in this philosophy are organizations arranged in a hierarchy, systems
of abstract rules and impersonal relationships between staff.
F.W. Taylor's contribution to organizational theory
This required an organization theory similar for all practical purposes
to that advocated by those organizational theorists who followed. These
theorists developed principles of management which included much of
Taylor's philosophy
His framework for organization was:
- clear delineation of
authority
- responsibility
- separation of
planning from operations
- incentive schemes
for workers
- management by
exception
- task specialization
Some problems
However, there were problems-Taylor's papers were not always well
received, as many of his ideas were associated with bad practice, such as
rate-cutting by unscrupulous managers.
In 1911 and 1912 Taylor was questioned at length by a special committee
of the US House of Representatives. As a result laws were passed banning
the use of stop-watches by civil servants and it was only in 1949 that this
restriction was lifted.
Taylor's view of the motivations of workers have had a profound
influence throughout the century until the present day. His belief that man
was rational and would make economic choices based on the degree of monetary
reward led him to devise payment systems that closely related the kind of
effort he sought with the level of reward offered.
Not surprisingly, there was strong criticism of this theory which treats
human beings like machines and assumes that workers are satisfied by money
alone.
Underlying assumptions
His views on motivation, management and organization all presupposed
certain conditions to be constant, which we now know they are not.
The assumptions underlying his work were:
- the presence of a
capitalist system and a money economy, where companies in a free
market have as their main objective the improvement of efficiency and
the maximization of profit;
- the Protestant work
ethic, that assumes people will work hard and behave rationally to
maximize their own income, putting the perceived requirements of their
organization before their own personal objectives and goals.
- that an increased
size is desirable in order to obtain the advantages of the division of
labor and specialization of tasks.
Taylor's impact has been so great because he developed a concept of work design, work-measurement, production control and
other functions, that completely changed the nature of industry. Before
scientific management, such departments as work study, personnel,
maintenance and quality control did not exist. What was more his methods
proved to be very successful.
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