Frederick Taylor and Scientific Management

In 1911, Frederick Winslow Taylor published his work, The Principles of Scientific Management, in which he described how the application of the scientific method to the management of workers greatly could improve productivity. Scientific management methods called for optimizing the way that tasks were performed and simplifying the jobs enough so that workers could be trained to perform their specialized sequence of motions in the one "best" way.

Prior to scientific management, work was performed by skilled craftsmen who had learned their jobs in lengthy apprenticeships. They made their own decisions about how their job was to be performed. Scientific management took away much of this autonomy and converted skilled crafts into a series of simplified jobs that could be performed by unskilled workers who easily could be trained for the tasks.

Taylor became interested in improving worker productivity early in his career when he observed gross inefficiencies during his contact with steel workers.

Soldiering

Working in the steel industry, Taylor had observed the phenomenon of workers' purposely operating well below their capacity that is, soldiering. He attributed soldiering to three causes:

1. The almost universally held belief among workers that if they became more productive, fewer of them would be needed and jobs would be eliminated.

2. Non-incentive wage systems encourage low productivity if the employee will receive the same pay regardless of how much is produced, assuming the employee can convince the employer that the slow pace really is a good pace for the job. Employees take great care never to work at a good pace for fear that this faster pace would become the new standard. If employees are paid by the quantity they produce, they fear that management will decrease their per-unit pay if the quantity increases.

3. Workers waste much of their effort by relying on rule-of-thumb methods rather than on optimal work methods that can be determined by scientific study of the task.

To counter soldiering and to improve efficiency, Taylor began to conduct experiments to determine the best level of performance for certain jobs, and what was necessary to achieve this performance.

Time Studies

Taylor argued that even the most basic, mindless tasks could be planned in a way that dramatically would increase productivity, and that scientific management of the work was more effective than the "initiative and incentive" method of motivating workers. The initiative and incentive method offered an incentive to increase productivity but placed the responsibility on the worker to figure out how to do it.

To scientifically determine the optimal way to perform a job, Taylor performed experiments that he called time studies, (also known as time and motion studies). These studies were characterized by the use of a stopwatch to time a worker's sequence of motions, with the goal of determining the one best way to perform a job.

The following are examples of some of the time-and-motion studies that were performed by Taylor and others in the era of scientific management.

Pig Iron

If workers were moving 12 1/2 tons of pig iron per day and they could be incentivized to try to move 47 1/2 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 1/2 tons per day without tiring.

Not all workers were physically capable of moving 47 1/2 tons per day; perhaps only 1/8 of the pig iron handlers were capable of doing so. While these 1/8 were not extraordinary people who were highly prized by society, their physical capabilities were well-suited to moving pig iron. This example suggests that workers should be selected according to how well they are suited for a particular job.

The Science of Shoveling

In another study of the "science of shoveling", Taylor ran time studies to determine that the optimal weight that a worker should lift in a shovel was 21 pounds. Since there is a wide range of densities of materials, the shovel should be sized so that it would hold 21 pounds of the substance being shoveled. The firm provided the workers with optimal shovels. The result was a three to four fold increase in productivity and workers were rewarded with pay increases. Prior to scientific management, workers used their own shovels and rarely had the optimal one for the job.

Bricklaying

Others performed experiments that focused on specific motions, such as Gilbreth's bricklaying experiments that resulted in a dramatic decrease in the number of motions required to lay bricks. The husband and wife Gilbreth team used motion picture technology to study the motions of the workers in some of their experiments.

Taylor's 4 Principles of Scientific Management

After years of various experiments to determine optimal work methods, Taylor proposed the following four principles of scientific management:

1. Replace rule-of-thumb work methods with methods based on a scientific study of the tasks.

2. Scientifically select, train, and develop each worker rather than passively leaving them to train themselves.

3. Cooperate with the workers to ensure that the scientifically developed methods are being followed.

4. 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.

These principles were implemented in many factories, often increasing productivity by a factor of three or more. Henry Ford applied Taylor's principles in his automobile factories, and families even began to perform their household tasks based on the results of time and motion studies.

Drawbacks of Scientific Management

While scientific management principles improved productivity and had a substantial impact on industry, they also increased the monotony of work. The core job dimensions of skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy, and feedback all were missing from the picture of scientific management.

While in many cases the new ways of working were accepted by the workers, in some cases they were not. The use of stopwatches often was a protested issue and led to a strike at one factory where "Taylorism" was being tested. Complaints that Taylorism was dehumanizing led to an investigation by the United States Congress. Despite its controversy, scientific management changed the way that work was done, and forms of it continue to be used today.

Frederick Winslow Taylor: Father of Modern Management

Modern management is the collaboration of people and machines to create value. In the early days of industrialization the innovators of machines and the innovators of organization and management were engineers. Engineers, after all, were the ones closest to the machines, and this fact placed them at the interaction of workers and machines. This certainly helps explain Frederick Taylor and his invention of "Scientific Management".

Taylor began his career as the first management theorist, consultant, and "guru" as an apprentice foreman and common laborer, positions from which he quickly advanced to chief engineer. Taylor's early resume, however, belies the fact that he was born into an affluent Philadelphia family. His direct observations of men at work led him to develop what we would call "motivation" theory, although this is a psychology term that would not be imported into the management vocabulary until later. Taylor's own point of view, although benign towards workers, saw human labor very much analogous to machine work--- something to be "engineered" to achieve efficiency. His theories on management would be promoted worldwide (and maybe took stronger root in Japan than in the U.S. or Europe) and would be controversial at home. If greater economic development through efficient and productive work was Taylor's own view of his work, the growing Labor Movement would see "Taylorism" as exploitive. Organized labor's antagonism to the American popularity of Taylor's work would eventually lead to Congressional hearings and, pretty much, the demise of "Scientific Management".

Taylor advocated: 1. Systematic analysis of each distinct operation 'Create an elaborate set of rules to regulate every aspect of worker behaviour at the workplace' instead of relying on rule of thumb. Subdividing production processes into individual tasks to achieve task specialization, using time and motion studies to determine the most efficient method for performing each work task and providing necessary rest periods were part of his analysis. Taylor's famous phrase 'Time is Money' relates to such studies. 2. Uncoupling direct and indirect activities Stripping all preparation and servicing tasks from unskilled operator jobs and grouping them into service jobs that are executed by higher skilled maintenance workers. 3. Carefully designing wage payments to maximize employee work effort Providing a piece-rate system of compensation of meritorious bonuses. Taylor hated "soldiering", a term describing the group process in which workers slow their pace of work to suit the average worker's needs. "Pay the Worker, Not the Job". 4. Adopting formal training activities Selecting and training employees by thoroughly investigating personalities and skills so individual workers could not acquire unique knowledge that could raise their position of power. 5. Centralized planning Uncoupling planning and operations. Workers execute the will of the managers rather than exercise their own judgement. Workers were seen as replaceable gears in a larger machinery, or in Taylor's words: "In the past the man has been first; in the future the system must be first". 6. Provision of clear instruction Readdressing the foreman's role as overseer over all aspects of production, and subdividing the function of the shop-floor inspector into four areas: setting-up boss, speed boss, quality inspector, and repair boss, each controlled by a planning department to coordinate and integrate the instructions required to run large and complex organisations. Subjecting the foremen and their staff to the rule of administrative clerks through systems of abstract rules and hierarchal power.

PROS: When properly applied to large production systems, Scientific Management could greatly increase productivity. For instance, at Bethlehem Iron, Taylor increased production over 350% and reduced workers by 70% by increasing the shovel size He promoted rationalization to create prospering organisations. Taylor believed that his principles resulted in a win-win situation for workers and managers and overcame this conflict-driven relationship. Taylor spoke of '.... an emphasis on harmony, not the discord of competition'. He regarded the interests of workers and manager as mutually dependent and that improving organizational efficiency led to wage increases. Taylor provided a justification for management by being the first to describe management as a profession and providing practical tools for managers to better control their organisations. He broke the power of craftsmanship and handed it to managers as guardians of organisations. Taylor's methodology was the first to use statistical control to analyse work and provided a basis for time motion studies, an essential tool in job design efforts. He paved the way for the development of Ford's T-Ford assembly line in the 1920s. Taylor laid the foundation for separating the "staff" and "line" functions required to run large organisations. His intent was to solve the issue of conflicting instructions by setting up specialized departments responsible for work study, personnel, maintenance and quality control. His ideas were very influential and adopted by firms in industrializing countries as far as Japan and France.

CONS: In the 1950s, Herbert Simon criticized Taylor's belief that there was a "best way to do anything". Scientific Management was internally oriented where optimising current resources was more important than effectively allocating resources over time. He neglected the issue of organisational restructuring required by changes in customer needs. Taylor argued that firms must always increase their size to maximize advantages from division of labour and specialization of tasks. The win-win situation between workers and managers did not material as Taylor had envisioned. Trade unions saw the method as dehumanising workers and undermining craftsmanship. Although Taylor required workers to be willing to cooperate during the implementation of Scientific Management, they often falsified figures during the analysis phase or otherwise sabotaged the new job designs to protect their interests. Taylor not only exaggerated the benefits of his classic case on the loading of pig iron at Bethlehem Iron, the example's increase in results barely outweighed the implementation effort. Taylor held a limited view on motivation and group dynamics. For him, workers cared more about money than about work. Herzberg's Two Factor Theory showed a different ordering. Furthermore, Taylor saw teamwork as the root cause of 'soldering' and had to be strictly regulated by management, limiting the team size to four for a maximum of one week. His absolute division between planning and execution downplayed the role of continuous learning within operations. The benefits of group behaviour were observed in the late 1920s during the Hawthorne experiments and later refined by the Human Relations School.

Taylor developed his management theories in his book Shop Management published in 1903, making it arguably the first scholarly work on management. Although there were books and published pieces on what could be termed "management" these were more of a "guide to" or trade publication on best practices. Shop Management approached the role of manager as a general role with specific functions with respect to collaborative work. The problem, as Taylor saw it, was that workers were inefficient because: (1) Workers tended to ration their work load or work less than they could, because working faster and harder would mean that there would be less or no work to do in the future. (2) Management failed to structure work effectively and to provide appropriate incentives. It should be pointed out that Taylor is writing before the establishment of a "minimum wage" (the minimum wage became federal law in 1938), so the notion of what is "a fair day's work for a fair day's pay" was arbitrary. A day-rate or hourly-rate was a common practice at the turn of the century. Taylor viewed these wage practices as rewarding for attendance, not performance. While another common practice was the "piece-rate" system that paid workers on the basis of output, this generally failed because standards were poorly set, employers cut rates when workers earned "too much", and workers would conceal their real capacity for production to keep standards low.

The solution, to Taylor, lay in discovering the appropriate work standard and fitting wages to the standard. Management should establish specific work targets, pay workers for the tasks and goals met, and provide regular feedback. The main elements of his theory were:

1. Management is a true science. The solution to the problem of determining fair work standards and practices could be discovered by experimentation and observation. From this, it follows, that there is "one right way" for work to be performed.

2. The selection of workers is a science. Taylor's "first class worker" was someone suitable for the job. It was management's role to determine the kind of work for which an employee was most suited, and to hire and assign workers accordingly.

3. Workers are to be developed and trained. It is management's task to not only engineer a job that can be performed efficiently, but management is responsible for training the worker as to how the work is to be performed and for updating practices as better ones are developed. This standardizes how the work is performed in the best way.

4. Scientific management is a collaboration of workers and managers. Managers are not responsible for execution of work, but they are responsible for how the work is done. Planning, scheduling, methods, and training are functions of the manager.

The "scientific" approach towards work led Taylor to investigate work through "task allocation" which meant that a job would be studied by sub-dividing it into discrete tasks, each element of the job would be investigated to discern the optimal efficiency by which it could be accomplished. The elements of the job, properly designed, then, would be reconstructed as an efficient job. The criticism of this approach is that it omits the worker's own contribution to the design of work and, thereby, alienates the worker from the job. Still, what Taylor does is link national wealth and company profits to how effectively work is performed, and he defines a cooperative role between labor and management in wealth creation.

Taylor's system was widely adopted in the United States and the world until its demise in the 1930's as organized labor pushed for a minimum wage based on hourly pay, as opposed to Taylor's contention that pay ought to be based on performance. In practice "Taylorism" too often fell short of a collaboration between labor and management and, frequently, was a mask for business exploitation of workers. The enduring and unquestionable contribution of Frederick Taylor is that management is firmly established as something done by trained, professional practitioners and is elevated as the subject of legitimate scholarship.