Principles of scientific
management
Submitted by : Varun Mohan
Varun
Tandon
Class: FY-D
Frederick Winslow Taylor, was born on
March 20, 1865, into an upper class liberal
Philadelphia family.
Taylor was always counting and measuring
things to figure a better way of doing
something.
At age twenty-five, Taylor earned an
engineering degree at the Stevens Institute of
Technology in New Jersey.
He started as shop clerk and quickly
progressed to machinist, foreman,
maintenance foreman, and chief
draftsman.
Within six years he advanced to research
director, then chief engineer.
Taylor’s main focus:
Maximize workers capacity and profits
PROBLEM:
Get employees to work at their maximum capacity
PRIMARY FOCUS:
TASKS
The rule of reason experimentation
improved quality clear tasks and goals
lower costs training
higher wages stress reduction
increased output careful selection and
labor-management development of
people
The systematic study of the relationships between
people and tasks for the purpose of redesigning the
work process for higher efficiency.
Defined by Frederick Taylor in the late 1800’s to
replace informal rule of thumb knowledge.
Taylor sought to reduce the time a worker spent on
each task by optimizing the way the task was
done.
Published in 1911
Prior to scientific management work was
performed by skilled craftsmen who had
learned their jobs in lengthy apprenticeships.
Scientific management took away much of
this autonomy and converted skilled crafts
into a series of simplified jobs that could be
performed by unskilled worker who easily
could be trained for the task.
Working in the steel industry, Taylor had observed
the phenomenon of workers’ purposely operating
well below their capacity (soldiering)
Reasons
Believe that if they become more productive job would be
eliminated
Non-incentive wage systems
Rule-of-thumb training methods - inefficient
To improve efficiency Taylor began to conduct experiments
to determine the best level of performance and what was
necessary to achieve this performance.
Experiments that were performed to determine
the one best way to perform particular job.
Pig Iron
The science of shoveling
if workers were moving 12 ½ tons of pig iron per day
and they could be incentives to try to move 47 ½ tons
per day, left to their own wits they probably would
become exhausted after a few hours and fail to reach
their goal.
However, by first conducting experiments to determine
the amount of resting that was necessary, the worker's
manager could determine the optimal timing of lifting
and resting so that the worker could move the 47 ½
tons per day without tiring.
Not all workers were physically capable of moving
that, so workers should be selected according to how
they are suited foe a particular job.
determined that the optimal
weight that a worker should
lift in a shovel was 21 pounds.
The shovel should be sized so
that it can handle that.
Prior to that workers used
their own shovels.
1. Study the ways jobs are performed now and
determine new ways to do them.
Gather detailed time and motion information.
Try different methods to see which is best.
2. Codify the new methods into rules.
Teach to all workers the new method.
3. Select workers whose skills match the rules.
4. Establish fair levels of performance and pay a
premium for higher performance.
Workers should benefit from higher output.
Up until that time, increasing output meant:
more hours,
more employees,
more raw materials, and more costs.
Scientific management uses basic logic to show how:
standardization,
productivity, and
division of labor
increase efficiency.
Revolutionized industry because it explained how to increase production by
working smarter, not harder.
Beneficial organizational model because created standards.
Laid the foundations of how businesses should be run from an organizational
standpoint.
Increased a worker’s output, allowing them to take home a greater pay than
ever before
The worker would concentrate on the day-to-day tasks asked of them, and not
have to worry about the decision making.
Decisions were left to management who were able to take the best course of
action after careful study, planning, and implementation of pre-defined
standards
The “Principles of Scientific Management”
were translated into Chinese, Dutch, French,
German, Italian, Russian, and Japanese.
In Japan
•Techniques set by Taylor were introduced into its
industry and this was primarily started by Ueno
Yoichi.
• In 1919, Ueno was hired by the Lion
Toothpowder Company, where he increased the
productivity of its packaging department by 20
percent while reducing the area of working space
by 30 percent and cutting work time by one hour
per day.
In Russia
Lenin also trusted the methods suggested by Taylor
would show satisfactory results.
The Soviet Union’s famous five-year plans that set
goals for industrial productivity and economic
growth were a direct result of scientific
management principles.
,.,
Managers frequently implemented only the
increased output side of Taylor’s plan.
Workers did not share in the increased output.
Specialized jobs became very boring, dull.
Workers ended up distrusting the Scientific Management
method.
Workers could purposely “under-perform.”
Management responded with increased use of machines.
The core jobs dimensions of skill variety, task
identity, task significance, autonomy and feedback
all are missing.
Later on developments were made on the basis
of the existing theory regarding management
and different ideas were brought together by
different people.
An addition is always been made into the
existing theory just because people are
influenced to look more closely on how to
improve the production and working
environments.
And hence over the years, the following
theories were provided and these theories are
till date revised and improvements are
implemented .
Organizational Environment
Theory
Management Science Theory
Behavioral Management Theory
Administrative Management Theory
Scientific Management Theory
