Frederick Taylor
Scientific Management
Through Taylors 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
