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.

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.

F.W Taylor introduced a scientific management, Taylorism, in the early 20th century to solve the problem of inefficiency. The aim of Taylorism is to maixmise productivity and minimise waste of resources using specialisation of labour. There are three main components of Taylorism and it will be discussed in detail in the later paragraphs.

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

Taylorism is a system that was designed in the late 19th century, not only to maximise managerial control, but to also expand the levels of efficiency throughout workplaces. With this being said, productivity levels increased and fair wage distribution was the main result. However, with other, more recent theories and systems, such as Maslow and Herzburg’s theories, these helped to focus on the satisfaction and motivation of the workers rather than the concern of managerial control and empowerment. Fredrick W. Taylor ended up developing 4 main principles to help increase the work efficiency and productivity in workplaces; these will be discussed later on. Other theories relating to this include, Fayol, Follett, Management Science Theory as

Taylor 's Theory was developed by Frederick Winslow Taylor, it was mainly associated with Scientific Management. Taylor endeavoured to increase labour and productivity in the workplace through a thorough study of a worker 's role and design a more efficient and productive approach to their jobs, this procedure derived from the observation Taylor made of workers 'soldiering ', the term applied if a worker deliberately worked at less than maximum potential. Taylor 's studies would involve analysing and breaking down tasks, reorganising and then simplifying them (Van Delinder, 2005).

* Frederick Taylor's theory of scientific management developed techniques for improving the efficiency of the work process.

This theory focused on the belief that making someone work as hard as they could wasn’t nearly as efficient as optimizing how the person was doing that work. Taylor suggested that if jobs were optimized and simplified productivity would increase and that if management and workers cooperated with one another productivity would increase (MindTools.com, 2016). In his book published in 1909 entitled “The Principles of Scientific Management” Taylor introduced his four principles of scientific management. While scientific management received much criticism it has made many significant contributions in the advancement of management. It provided a way to study workplace efficiency, introduced systematic selection and promoted the idea of systematic organizational design (MindTools.com,

Frederick W. Taylor was recognized as the father of the "scientific management" theory. Taylor's Scientific Management Theory is not just a collection of purely technical principles and practices, but also the cooperation and harmonization of fundamental relationships between people and machines and techniques; between people in the production process, especially between the manager and the employee. Thanks to this theory applied in the industrial enterprises, the labor productivity has increased dramatically; The final result is high profitability, both employers and workers are high income. His scientific approach requires detailed observation and measurement of routine work, in order to find the best working way. Taylor’s approach is categorized as the bottom up approach.

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.

Taylorism, additionally known as Scientific Management, is a theory of management methodology that emphasizes on maximising work efficiency. Developed and named after an American industrial engineer, Frederick Winslow Taylor. Through thorough use of a stopwatch and a clipboard, Taylor put all his research and outcomes into a book called the Principles of Scientific Management, which was later published in 1911. In the monograph Taylor’s notion was to mend the economical proficiency, principally in the labouring output. He believed that there were great losses, when “the whole country is suffering through inefficiency in almost of all of our daily acts” (Taylor 1911) and that “remedies in inefficiency lies in systematic

Scientific management theory was developed in the late 19th century by Fredric Winslow Taylor. At that time, the business environment was experiencing a revolution from agricultural to industrial dependency. As a result, a majority of the workers migrating from rural to industrial areas seeking employment opportunities were untrained and generally less effective. Taylor therefore sought to establish how an organization can enjoy maximum efficiency and productivity. He did this by scientifically studying the work flow process. Particularly, he was interested on how work was being conducted and the effect this had on individual productivity. He concluded that the level of efficiency and productivity between individual varied

The problem before the management, then, may be briefly said to be that of obtaining the best initiative of every workman. And the writer uses the word "initiative" in its broadest sense, to cover all of the good qualities sought for from the men.

Critically discuss the notion that Scientific Management was a ‘good’ idea in the history of management thinking.

To fix these problems and to make enterprises more profitable Taylor looked at the scientific side of establishments and developed four management principles. The first one is the principle of “developing a science for each element of work” (Thompson and McHugh, 2009, p.30). Within this principle Taylor summarizes the whole accumulated knowledge of the workers and the company. Hence, he creates rules and norms for each process. Furthermore, he divided the processes in small parts and analyzed them concerning their lead time and course of movement. As a result Taylor could identify and eliminate interference factors (Taylor, 1911, p.24).