Scientific management is also widely recognised as Taylorism. Taylorism was used in industrial firm to solve the complex problem about increasing the labour productivity. Scientific management allows absolute uniformity to a greater extent within the labour’s working in an industry. this eventually enforced great deal of burden, responsibilities, duties to the managers which never took place in the past.
Frederick W. Taylor an American Engineer developed the scientific management theory in United States during the late 19th century. After working as an employee in a middle steel company he realized the company was greatly affected by the employees as well as lack of compliance between the employees and employers. This observation made him build advanced ideas which eventually helped industries to enhance their productivity (Livvarçin & Kurt, 2012).
Save your time!
We can take care of your essay
- Proper editing and formatting
- Free revision, title page, and bibliography
- Flexible prices and money-back guarantee
In 1885, after joining the American Mechanical Engineers association (ASME) Taylor presented two articles, ‘Piece Rate’ and ‘Shop-Management’. The first article suggested changing of waging system to motivate the people who work with full dedication. The second article mainly focused on management philosophy, highlighted the importance of high wages, incentives and also mass production. The importance of relationship between managers and workers was also pointed out (Hodgetts, 1990).
By observation, the definition of scientific management can be easily understood. Scientific means involves the use of techniques based on facts or experimental analysis against general assumptions while management can be simply described as process of dealing things for others. Therefore it can be rightly said to be the “art of knowing exactly what is to be done and the best way of doing it” (Bose, 2012). Techniques given by were widely used in different groups like governmental departments, families, universities etc. and showed great success in various organizational situations (Taylor, 1911).
Taylor conveyed management is fully responsible for understanding the scientific methods and also to fulfill some experiments to which they were not at all familiar. He announced these missions and responsibilities as ‘scientific management principles’. These principles are as follows:
- Scientific methods were used, rather than using the old thumb rule.
- Workers were made capable for the job by using scientific procedures.
- The employers and employees should maintain healthy relationships whereas the company wants all the staff to follow the rules and regulations laid by the company.
- Equal distribution of work, management and workers should concentrate on their part without hindering in each other’s work.
Taking these scientific management principles into account, it can be easily said that they significantly contributed to the modern management. Instead of the rule of thumb method which is the first principle, new scientific methods which are more accurate were invented. The second principle mainly focused on workers, to make each worker capable for performing the tasks. Workers were selected through a certain process . To achieve smooth workflow in an industry there should be good understanding between the management and workmen is described in third principle. The fourth principle focuses on Division of responsibility. So basically equal amount of work is distributed between management and the workers which they have to carry out without interfering each other.
Taylor developed a technique called ‘Soldiering' for encouraging the workers. Taylor studied few people for around 3-4 days, to find a suitable person for the job. Four people who appeared suitable were picked and each of the people was studied. Taylor found out that on the salary of $1.15 he was able to buy a small piece of land and was working on it before and after the work for building a house (Taylor, 1998).
Taylor’s theory was further pursued and simplified by Henry Ford. Some interesting techniques were implemented by ford. The fabrication line was transformed into an automatic process, where the workers were stationary i.e. they performed their tasks without moving, and as automatic process was used it was easy for managers to look after employees as well as pace of the work. The next idea was that every single worker should get same amount of money because not much skills was required for performing tasks on automatic production line. Ford also said that incentives were not needed in spite of that he would increase the salaries. With this ideas, Ford increased the salaries and was able to predict all his costs, since each workers had fixed and equal salary, managers were able to control the pace of manufacturing, therefore controlling every stage of production, what he called mass production (Hoffmane, 2009).
Stuck on your essay?
