Scientific management
In the mid-nineteenth century, traditional management practices were found to be inadequate to meet demands from the changing economic, social and technological environment. Numerous enterprises were simply functioning inefficiently. A few pioneers examined the causes of these inefficiencies and tried to try to find more efficient methods and procedures for running a firm. These basic experiments gave birth to a system which became known as scientific management. Its method relied heavily on finding the "one best way" to solve every operating using scientific methods of research. The concept involved a way of thinking about management.
F.W. Taylor (1856-1917)
F.W. Taylor can be identified as the "father" of the scientific management movement. He came from a middle-class family and studied to become an engineer. He was successful in his career and managed to move up to a high position in an American steel firm. He was obsessed with finding the best method of doing jobs and conducted numerous experiments related this aspect of labor in industrial setting.
In 1911, he published his most famous book: principles of scientific management.
He was among the first experts who systematically tried to formulate some universal management principles:
- Workers should have a detailed, clearly defined, daily task;
- Standardized conditions are needed to ensure the task is more easily accomplished;
- High payment should be given to the workers who managed to successfully complete their tasks. Workers who failed to their standards, in turn, should be sanctioned and receive less compensation.
According to Taylor management must execute several new duties:
- The development of a true science;
- The scientific selection, education and development of workers;
- Friendly, close co-operation between management and workers. .
In summary it may be stated that Taylor emphasized the need for time and motion study, effective control over performance by the use of the "exception principle", the definition of responsibility and effective selection and training of personnel.
He spoke on the subject at a conference and stressed that people who did not understand his principles and applied his advices in an erroneous manner. Taylor stressed that his principles cannot solve all management problems. He warned that his principles are related to techniques and should not be confused with the aims of an enterprise. Although Taylor's work may be overestimated, he was the first management expert who clearly codified certain practices and the application of the practices has made many factories operate much better: more efficient.
He and his contemporaries Gantt, Gilbreth and Emerson stressed the "engineering approach."
