Scientific Management

• Scientific management was a theory of

management that analyzed and synthesized
workflows. Its main objective was improving
economic efficiency, especially labor activity.
The core idea was developed by Frederick
Winslow Taylor in the 1880’s and 1890’s, were
first published in his monographs Shop
Management (1903) and The Principles of
Scientific Management (1911).
• He was one of the first people to try to apply
science to this application, that is,
understanding why and how these differences
existed and how best practices could be
analyzed and synthesized, then propagated to
the other workers via standardization of
process steps.
• He believed that decision based upon tradition and rules of
thumb should be replaced by precise procedures developed
after careful study of an individual at work, including via
time and motion studies. Scientific management was
contingent on a high level of managerial control over
employee work practices. This necessitated a higher ratio of
managerial workers to laborers than previous management
methods. It also caused interpersonal friction between
workers and managers, and social tension between the
blue-collar and white-collar classes.
• Scientific management often called Taylorism; the terms are often considered
synonymous. A discerning view considers Taylorism as the first form of scientific
management, which was followed by ne iterations. Taylor’s own early names for
his approach included “shop management” and “process management”. When
Louis Brandeis coin the term “scientific management”, Taylor recognized it as
another good name for the concept , and he used it himself in his 1911
monograph. It is compared and contrasted with other efforts, including those of
Frank Gilbreth and Lillian Moller Gilbreth (whose views originally shared much
with Tyalor’s but later evolved divergently in response to Taylorism’s inadequate
handling of human relations). Taylorism proper became obsolete by the 1930’s,
and by the 1960’s the term “scientific management” had fallen out of favor for
describing current management theories.
• Many aspects of scientific management never stopped being part of later
management efforts called by other names.
• Scientific management is a variation on the theme of economic efficiency, it
is a late 19th and early 20th century instance of the larger recurring theme in
human life of increasing efficiency, decreasing waste, and using empirical
methods to decide what matters, rather accepting pre-existing ideas of what
matters. Thus it is a chapter in a larger narrative that includes many ideas
and fields, form the folk wisdom of thrift to a profusion of applied-science
successors, including time and motion study, and the Efficiency Movement
(which was the broader cultural echo of scientific management's impact on
business managers specifically), Fordism, operation management, operation
research, industrial engineering, manufacturing engineering, logistics,
business process management, business process engineering, lean
manufacturing, and Six Sigma. There is a fluid continuum linking scientific
management by that name with the later fields, and there is often no
mutual exclusiveness when discussing the details of any one theses topics.
• In management literature today, the greatest use of the term
“scientific management” is with reference to work of Taylor and his
disciples in contrast to newer , and improved iterations efficiency-
seeking methods. In political and sociological terms, Taylorism can
be seen as the division of labor pushed to its logical extreme, with a
consequent de-skilling of the worker and dehumanization of the
workplace. Taylorism is often mentioned among with Fordism,
because it was closely related with mass production methods in
factories , which was its earliest application. Today, task-oriented
optimization of work tasks in nearly ubiquitous in industry. The
theory behind has evolved greatly since Taylor’s day, reducing the ill
effects, although in the wrong hands it is sometimes implemented
poorly even now.
• Frederick Taylor forms part of the classical
approach to management theory.
• Taylor placed emphasis on the lower echelons
of the organization
 Frederick Taylor’s Theories of Scientific
Management
• The Principles of Scientific Management
• techniques that were adopted to improve the
productivity of the employees at Bethlehem
Steel.
• techniques proved to be a great success as a
result Taylor became recognized as the
founder of the Work Study Movement.
• The majority of the workers put minimal effort to
their work if they knew they could easily get
away with it.
• Mode of behavior as soldering.
• He attributed this problem with his
mismanagement of work at the lowest levels of
organizations.
• This lack of proper organization manifested itself
in lack of productivity.
 Frederick Taylor’s Scientific Method

• Adopting a different method by introducing a

step-by-step method to determine best
practices or the “one best way” in performing
a job thereby establishing the proper pay-rates
for the job.
• Taylor’s scientific method was of great
influence to industrial companies and it
completely revolutionized the organization of
work in industrial organizations.
• Taylor’s methodical approach to determine
the “one best way” to perform a job consisted
of the following steps:
1. Select a sample of skilled workers and
carefully study the job being done.
2. Carefully list each operation including
extensive details on each task being
performed.
3. Utilize a stopwatch to each task being
performed. Repeat this step over a period of
time to obtain an average of the time it takes to
perform each task.
4. Indentify and eliminate any unnecessary tasks
that are being performed to finalized the job.
5. Identify any improvements, tools or techniques
that can be adopted to reduce the time in
performing the job.
6. Establish new and informed time and pay-
rates for the job.
7. Lastly, all workers are trained to perform the
job in the “one best way” identified.
 Frederick Taylor’s 4 Principles of Scientific
Management
• To increase productivity in industrial
organizations
• Four principles of scientific management:
1. Work methods based on scientific study of
the tasks carried out should be adopted.
2. Employees should be scientifically selected
and trained by the management and not left
to their own devices.
3. Managers should train workers and audit the
worker’s performance to ensure that the adopted
scientific methods are being properly performed.
4. Work should be divided between managers and
workers so that managers can apply the
established scientific method s processes of
production, whereas the workers can perform
the job according to the established procedures.
• Taylor's scientific method establish work
procedures resulted in reduced timeframes to
perform jobs and introduced rules and
procedures to industrial management. Taylor’s
method became known as work study and it
was embraced by several organizations. It was
eventually also applied to office and
administrative jobs and it became a precursor
to systems analysis.
 Taylor
• Frederick Winslow Taylor (1856-1917) put forward the idea that workers
are motivated mainly by pay. His Theory of Scientific Management
argued the following:
1. Workers do not naturally enjoy work and so need close supervision and
control.
2. Therefore managers should break down production in to a series of
small tasks.
3. Workers should then be given appropriate training and tools so they can
work efficiently as possible on one set task.
4. Workers are then paid according to the number of items they produce
in a set period of time-piece-rate pay.
5. As a result workers are encouraged to work hard and maximize their
productivity.
• Taylor’s methods were widely adopted as business saw the benefits of
increase productivity levels and lower unit costs. The most notably
advocate was Henry Ford who used them to design the first ever
production line, making Ford cars. This was the start of the era of mass
production.
• Taylor’s approach has close links with the concept of autocratic
management style (managers take all the decisions and simply give orders
to those below them) and Macgregor’s Theory X approach to workers
(workers are viewed as lazy and wish to avoid responsibilities).
• However workers soon came to dislike Taylor’s approach as they were only
given boring, repetitive task to carry out and being treated little better than
human machines. Firms could also afford to lay off workers as productivity
levels increased. This led to an increase in strikes and other forms of
industrial actions by dissatisfied workers.