Taylors scientific management consisted of four principles: Replace rule-of-thumb work methods with methods based on a scientific study of the tasks. Scientifically select, train, and develop each employee rather than passively leaving them to train themselves. Provide Detailed instruction and supervision of each worker in the performance of that workers discrete task (Montgomery 1997: 250). 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. Future US Supreme Court justice Louis Brandeis coined the term scientific management in the course of his argument for the Eastern Rate Case before the Interstate Commerce Commission in 1910. Brandeis argued that railroads, when governed according to Taylors principles, did not need to raise rates to increase wages. Taylor used Brandeiss term in the title of his monograph The Principles of Scientific Management, published in 1911. The Eastern Rate Case propelled Taylors ideas to the forefront of the management agenda. Taylor wrote to Brandeis I have rarely seen a new movement started with such great momentum as you have given this one. Taylors approach is also often referred to as Taylors Principles, or, frequently disparagingly, as Taylorism. Managers and workers Taylor had very precise ideas about how to introduce his system: It is only through enforced standardization of methods, enforced adoption of the best implements and working conditions, and enforced cooperation that this faster work can be assured. And the duty of enforcing the adoption of standards and enforcing this cooperation rests with management alone.[9] Workers were supposed to be incapable of understanding what they were doing. According to Taylor this was true even for rather simple tasks. I can say, without the slightest hesitation, Taylor told a congressional committee, that the science of handling pig-iron is so great that the man who is ... physically able to handle pig-iron and is sufficiently phlegmatic and stupid to choose this for his occupation is rarely able to comprehend the science of handling pig-iron.[10] Taylor believed in transferring control from workers to management. He set out to increase the distinction between mental (planning work) and manual labor (executing work). Detailed plans specifying the job, and how it was to be done, were to be formulated by management and communicated to the workers.[11] The introduction of his system was often resented by workers and provoked numerous strikes. The strike at Watertown Arsenal led to the congressional investigation in 1912. Taylor believed the laborer was worthy of his hire, and pay was linked to productivity. His workers were able to earn substantially more than those under conventional management,[12] and this earned him enemies among the owners of factories where scientific management was not in use. Propaganda techniques Taylor promised to reconcile labor and capital. With the triumph of scientific management, unions would have nothing left to do, and they would have been cleansed of their most evil feature: the restriction of output. To underscore this idea, Taylor fashioned the myth that there has never been a strike of men working under scientific management, trying to give it credibility by constant repetition. In similar fashion he incessantly linked his proposals to shorter hours of work, without bothering to produce evidence of Taylorized firms that reduced working hours, and he revised his famous tale of Schmidt carrying pig iron at Bethlehem Steel at least three times, obscuring some aspects of his study and stressing others, so that each successive version made Schmidts exertions more impressive, more voluntary and more rewarding to him than the last. Unlike [Harrington] Emerson, Taylor was not a charlatan, but his ideological message required the suppression of all evidence of workers dissent, of coercion, or of any human motives or aspirations other than those his vision of progress could encompass.[13] Scholarly confirmation of increased efficiency moving pig iron at Bethlehem Steel A study published in the Journal of Management written by Jill R. Hough and Margaret A. White, titled: Using stories to create change: The object lesson of Frederick Taylor’s “pig-tale”, provides compelling historical evidence of the truth of the assertions Taylor made regarding the quite substantial increase in productivity, for even the most basic task of picking up, carrying and dropping pigs of iron. [14] Management theory Taylor thought that by analyzing work, the One Best Way to do it would be found. He is most remembered for developing the stopwatch time study, which combined with Frank Gilbreths motion study methods later becomes the field of time and motion study. He would break a job into its component parts and measure each to the hundredth of a minute. One of his most famous studies involved shovels. He noticed that workers used the same shovel for all materials. He determined that the most effective load was 21½ lb, and found or designed shovels that for each material would scoop up that amount. He was generally unsuccessful in getting his concepts applied and was dismissed from Bethlehem Steel. Nevertheless, Taylor was able to convince workers who used shovels and whose compensation was tied to how much they produced to adopt his advice about the optimum way to shovel by breaking the movements down into their component elements and recommending better ways to perform these movements. It was largely through the efforts of his disciples (most notably H.L. Gantt) that industry came to implement his ideas. Moreover, the book he wrote after parting company with Bethlehem Steel, Shop Management, sold well. Relations with ASME Taylors own written works were designed for presentation to the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). These include Notes on Belting (1894), A Piece-Rate System (1895), Shop Management (1903), Art of Cutting Metals (1906), and The Principles of Scientific Management (1911). Taylor was president of the ASME from 1906 to 1907. While president, he tried to implement his system into the management of the ASME but was met with much resistance. He was only able to reorganize the publications department and then only partially. He also forced out the ASMEs long-time secretary, Morris L. Cooke, and replaced him with Calvin W. Rice. His tenure as president was trouble-ridden and marked the beginning of a period of internal dissension within the ASME during the Progressive Age.[15] In 1911, Taylor collected a number of his articles into a book-length manuscript which he submitted to the ASME for publication. The ASME formed an ad hoc committee to review the text. The committee included Taylor allies such as James Mapes Dodge and Henry R. Towne. The committee delegated the report to the editor of the American Machinist, Leon P. Alford. Alford was a critic of the Taylor system and the report was negative. The committee modified the report slightly, but accepted Alfords recommendation not to publish Taylors book. Taylor angrily withdrew the book and published Principles without ASME approval.[16] Taylor published the trade book himself in 1912.
Posted on: Sun, 07 Dec 2014 04:41:37 +0000
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