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Improving labor productivity by scientifically analyzing and establishing optimal workflow processes. Explanation of Scientific Management of Frederick Winslow Taylor. (1911)
What is Scientific Management? Description
The Scientific Management approach was devised by Frederick Winslow Taylor at the end of the 19th century to improve labor productivity by analyzing and establishing workflow processes. Taylor thought that by analyzing work in a scientific manner, the "One Best Way" to perform a task could be found. Taylor had pragmatic and even good motives to free up the good worker (Schmidt) of one half of his work, who was carrying pig iron at Bethlehem Steel. And at the same time he wanted to alleviate poverty and eliminate waste of time, energy and human ability. But his methods were very hard and sometimes had the opposite effect when they fell into the hands of ruthless exploiters of workers. This is why Scientific Management is often referred to disparagingly as Taylorism.
Basis or inspiration for many later management philosophies, including Management by Objectives, Operations Research, CSFs and KPIs and Balanced Scorecard, Just-intime and Lean Manufacturing, Total Quality Management, Six Sigma and Business Process Reengineering. As a contrast to modern business or management methods. Old-fashioned, inefficient industrial environments. Taylor was pragmatic and he was a strong advocate of Learning-by-Doing. Contrary to today's theorizing, hypothesis formation and testing, the One Best Way came from
the workers, not from the managers or owners (Spender and Kijne, 1996). Peter Drucker saw Taylor as the creator of Knowledge Management, because the aim of scientific management is to produce knowledge about how to improve work processes.
One of the first formal divisions between workers and managers. Contribution to efficient production methods, leading to a major global increase of living standards. Focus on the individual task and worker level. Compare: Business Process Reengineering (process level) Direct reward mechanisms for workers rather than pointless end-of-year profit sharing schemes. Systematic. Early proponent of quality standards. Suggestion schemes for workers, who should be rewarded by cash premiums. Emphasis on measuring. Measurement enables improvement. Pragmatic and useful in times and circumstances as described above (See: Biography).
Taylorism can easily be abused to exploit human beings. Conflicts with labor unions. Not useful to deal with groups or teams. Leaves no room for individual preferences or initiative. Overemphasis on measuring. No attention for soft factors. Mechanistic. Treating people as machines. Separation of planning function and doing. Loss of skill level and autonomy at worker level. Not very useful in current knowledge worker environments (except as an antithesis).