Frederick Winslow Taylor

One of the pioneers of industrial engineering whose work had a great impact on the profession was Frederick Winslow Taylor the "Father of Scientific Management. His innovations in industrial engineering, particularly in time and motion studies, paid off in dramatic improvements in productivity. At the same time, he has been credited with destroying the soul of work, of dehumanizing factories, making men into automatons. Under Taylor's management system, factories are managed through scientific methods.

The main elements of the Scientific Management are : "Time studies Functional or specialized supervision, Standardization of tools and implements, Standardization of work methods Separate, Planning function, Management by exception principle, The use of "slide-rules and similar time-saving devices", Instruction cards for workmen, Task allocation and large bonus for successful performance, The use of the 'differential rate,' Mnemonic systems for classifying products and implements, A routing system, A modern costing system etc. " Taylor called these elements "merely the elements or details of the mechanisms of management" He saw them as extensions of the four principles of management:

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.

References:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Winslow_Taylor

http://www.skymark.com/resources/leaders/taylor.asp

http://www.protech-ie.com/trivia.htm

http://www.alexisleon.com/art/2006/11/15/introduction-to-ie.html

http://ibiblio.org/eldritch/fwt/taylor.html

metu library resources

primer of scientific management by f.gilbreth