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Frederick W. Taylor (1856-1915)
 The complexity of big industrial factories and large-scale infrastructure
systems like the railways compared with the growing
belief in modern "scientific" methods
and the division between owners and managers supported
the establishment of "business school"
in the late 19th/early 20th c. (Wharton 1881, Harvard
1908) and the spreading of the word "manager".
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Normally the beginning of "Scientific Management"
is dated with the publication of Frederik
W. Taylors book "The principles
of Scientific Management" in 1911.
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.
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Taylor experimented with the organisation of shoveling coal. By using
different designs of shovel for use with different material 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.
A famous feature of "Taylorism" was stop-watch timing as the basis of
observations (banned in the USA from 1912 thru 1949!). He was sure that scientific method 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."
His framework for organization was:
- clear delineation of authority
- responsibility
- separation of planning from operations
- incentive schemes for workers
- management by exception
- task specialization
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.
Contact: wolfgang.arlt@fh-stralsund.de
Office: 1/132, Tel. (03831) 45 6961
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