taylor scientific management

Taylor scientific management

Frederic Winslow Taylor started his career as a mechanist in 1875. He studied engineering in an evening college and rose to the position of chief engineer in his organization. He invented high-speed steel cutting tools and spent most of his life as a consulting engineer.

Frederick Winslow Taylor (1856-1915) is is called the father of Scientific Management. His experience from the bottom-most level in the organization gave him an opportunity to know at first the problems of the workers. Taylor’s principal concern was that of increasing efficiency in production, not only to lower costs and raise profits but also to make possible increased pay for workers through their higher productivity.

Taylor saw productivity as the answer to both higher wages and higher profits. He believed that the application of the scientific method, instead of customs and rule of thumb could yield this productivity without the expenditure of more human energy or effort.

Taylor published a book entitled, The Principles of Scientific Management, in 1911. But his ideas about scientific management are best expressed in his testimony that was placed before a committee of the House of Representatives in 1912. Industrial problems increased due to the advent of large scale factory systems, mass production and mechanization.

People needed some specific principles an methods for solving the problems they faced. The initial impetus in scientific management movement was Taylor. He was more concerned with the engineering aspect and the problems of workers and productivity oriented wages.

F. W. Taylor’s 4 Principles of Scientific Management

The fundamental principles that Taylor saw underlying the scientific approach to management may be summarized as follows:

. Replace rule-of-thumb work methods with methods based on a scientific study of the tasks.

2. Scientifically select, train, and develop each worker rather than passively leaving them to train themselves.

3. Cooperate with the workers to ensure that the scientifically developed methods are being followed.

4. Divide work nearly equally between managers and workers, so that the managers apply scientific management principles to planning the work and the workers actually perform the tasks.

Taylor concentrated more on productivity and productivity based wages. He stressed on time and motion study and other techniques for measuring work. Apart from this, in Taylor’s work, there also runs a strongly humanistic theme. He had an idealist’s notion that the interests of workers, managers and owners should be harmonized.