Scientific management is the first coherent theory of administration put forward by Frederick Winslow Taylor. In 1911, he published his work, ‘The Principles of Scientific Management’. It is a theory of management that analyzes and synthesizes workflows, with the objective of improving worker productivity. Almost one hundred years after its publication, this theory continues to reverberate through almost every work environment. Many management principles came and gone, but scientific management withstands the test of time enhancing the human performance throughout the world. Because of his revolutionary principles, he is regarded as the “Father of Scientific Management”. Scientific management is also known as “Taylorism” or “Taylor System”.
Necessity of scientific management
During F W Taylor’s days, workers used to choose their own work and trained themselves as best as they could. In those days, all the work and other responsibilities were thrown on the workmen. The management was unorganized as workers themselves used to take administrative decisions, which generally used to result in high expenditure costs to manufacturing output. F W Taylor was a mechanical engineer but sought to organize the management. So he began trying to discover a way for workers to increase their efficiency and productivity with low cost.
Principles of scientific management
According to Taylor, scientific management involves a complete mental revolution on part of workers towards their duties, their work, their fellow employees and their problems and towards their managers. The main objective of the management is to secure maximum prosperity for the employer as well as for each employee of the organization. He stresses more on the productive efficiency of each worker through scientific management which would maximize the earnings of workers and employers.
Taylor believed that decisions based upon tradition and rules of thumb should be replaced by precise procedures developed after careful examination of work. Taylor thought that by analyzing or assessing the work, “One Best Way” to do it could be found. He said that an organization should scientifically select, train, teach and develop workers. There must be equal division of work and responsibility between management and workers. Taylor focused more on cooperation, not individualism.
Techniques of scientific management
Taylor proposed the concept of functional foremanship under which a worker is supervised and guided by eight functional foremen or specialized supervisors. He didn’t believe in single foremanship where a worker receives orders from only one superior. Taylor’s time and motion studies were very popular, where he focuses on determining standard work methods or best way to work and standard time for completion of work. Scientific management involves setting up a large daily task by the management, with reward for achieving targets and penalty if the targets are not met.
Some of the core values of Taylor’s scientific management include improved quality, lower costs, higher wages, higher output, labor-management cooperation, clear tasks and goals, feedback, mutual help and support, and careful selection, training and development of workers. Since scientific management rests on clearly fixed laws, rules and principles, it is applied in all types of organizations universally. It helps simplify the work process, assesses the work and gives status of the work, and also helps improve quality and quantity of the production.
Applications of scientific management
The theory of scientific management had a significant impact on administrative thought and practice in both industrial as well as governmental organizations throughout the world. It spread from USA to other countries including former USSR. These principles can be applied in almost any activity including the management of our homes, our businesses, our universities and even our governmental departments. These principles form the foundation for more advanced areas or more extensively used in some widely admired companies.
One of the biggest users of scientific management today is McDonalds, an American fast food restaurant that has spread its business successfully throughout the world. Henry Laurence Gantt, an American mechanical engineer and management consultant applied Taylor’s scientific management principles in his ‘Gantt Chart’ which helps to measure worker efficiency and productivity. Henry Ford, the American founder of the Ford Motor Company applied the principles of scientific management to his car factories to increase productivity as well as profits.
During the 1940s and 1950s, scientific management evolved into Operations Research and management cybernetics. Today’s Six Sigma and lean manufacturing can be considered as new forms of scientific management, though their principles vary. Shigeo Shingo, one of the originators of the Toyota Production System, believed that Japanese management culture in general should be seen as a kind of scientific management. Even the Capability Maturity Model (CMM) ratings are given to organizations based on scientific management principles.
In France, Taylor’s scientific management was introduced throughout government owned plants during the first world war. In Switzerland, an International Management Institute was established to spread scientific management techniques. In the USSR, Stalin started Stakhonavite movement employing hard work or Taylorist efficiencies to over-achieve on the job.
Harvard, one of the first American universities to offer a graduate degree in business management based its first-year curriculum on Taylor’s scientific management.