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Features of scientific management
Frederick Taylor's theory of scientific management
Taylor's principles of scientific management highlighting how they apply in todays organisation
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With reference to a contemporary example discuss the relevance of Taylor’s Principles of Scientific Management to organisations today. This essay will discuss the relevance of Taylor’s Principles of Scientific Management to organisations today. Taylor’s theory of Scientific Management is based around how efficiently a member of staff works in order to improve their productivity, the theory was introduced in 1911 and has four principles which were tested to determine optimal work methods, and are still seen in organisations today such as fast-food restaurants. Taylor believed that workers left to their own devices would restrict their output and not progress with the task, this was called ‘soldiering’ and it was described in two forms; natural …show more content…
The fast food restaurant Burger King uses Scientific Management by following a ‘one best way’ method of doing tasks, implemented by Taylor as an advanced form of standardised production. This includes scientifically hiring, training and developing each employee, encouraging a ‘work-for-reward’ based mind-set, and dividing workload between managers and workers fairly with regards to specific roles. This provides a stable working environment where workers work harder under better working conditions. Burger King shows evidence of a modern organisations that can reflect the scientific management principles; as Burger King consists of a system that offers rewards to employees for meeting the objective goals. Taylor stated that if workers are given no incentives despite putting in more effort, workers will be discouraged to work. Burger King uses a competitive wage and promotion programme where hard work is recognised and rewarded. Regular monitoring of performance and pushing for improvement avoids ‘under working’. Therefore, creating supervisors and leaders ensure discipline and makes a business perform well. The challenges that encouraged Taylor’s time and motion studies is still present within organisations today. However, management has developed new ways of encouraging output. In today’s business organisations employers are more concerned with ‘performance’ rather than …show more content…
The strengths in creating a divide between management functions and work functions have been employed widely at all levels and in all industries. Scientific management makes organisations efficient by replacing the rule of the thumb
Management Theorists such as F.W Taylor created the concept of scientific management, which is made up of six key aspects including observation, experiment, standardisation, selection and training, payment by results and co-operation. Despite some facets of his theory becoming outdated, scientific management can still be seen in the some way in current business structures. For example within Virgin, despite its reputation for having a relaxed working environment, some aspects of scientific management are used. Such as the selection and training and payment by results, with certain employees being offered rewards for showing ambition to set up their own businesses and showing signs of creative thinking.
Episode 143: Fredrick Winslow Taylor’s Scientific Management 2013, YouTube, Alanis Business Academy, 19 Nov, retrieved April 4 2014,
Wrege, C. D. and R. G. Greenwood (1991). Frederick W. Taylor, the father of scientific management: myth and reality: Irwin Professional Pub.
Scientific management was proposed by Frederick Taylor who believed that worker “could be retooled like machines, their physical and mental gears calibrated for better productivity.” In others words if a company develop a standard method for performing each job, train workers on those methods, and plan their work for them then production would be more efficient and effective. This perspective explains why McDonald 's employees are like robots. Everything is timed from start to finish in order to provide faster service. Max Weber 's hierarchical structure or bureaucratic organizations approach can be seen in McDonald 's structure. This perspective states that advancement in the company is not based on who you know but on what you know. There are certain positions established that people usually have to work from the bottom in order to prove that they have to the skills in order to move to a higher position. The administrative principles by Henri Fayol focuses on Unity of work, division of work, Unity of direction, and scalar chain. This perspective also apply to McDonald 's because usually there is only one manager on duty for the day. Since McDonald 's has implemented all three principles into the organization has this led to the success of the company. If not , then
Scientific management is a way that an organisation regulates their staff within a workplace. The theory behind this is accomplished by selecting the ‘best person for the best role’, who will undertake the training to train each worker to do a ‘specific role the right way’ (Frederick Taylor). This extracts the responsibility from the employee whilst handing over executive decisions to the employer to make strategic directions. Frederick Taylor required the managers to set the tasks for the employees in advanced and that each task was to be detailed to each employee, to be done in a certain way and completed by an exact time no less.
The major change came through the work of Fredrick Winslow Taylor and his theory of scientific management system. It was not that Taylor was unique or completely new; only time and motion study could be put in that category. The trend was already moving towards systematic management such as formal management methods or by cost ...
The concept of scientific management is based on the idea that work could be studied to increase efficiency, and specialization. Economist Adam Smith changed the way the world looked at the economy and organization. In his essay, “Of the Division of Labour,” Smith emphasizes the importance of specialization, and how division of labor leads to specialization. He states that this would allow a worker to be more productive and efficient (Shafritz, Ott, & Jang, 2011, p. 41-45). Frederick Taylor introduced the principles of scientific management, which stated that management is a science, workers should be scientifically selected and trained scientifically, and both management and workers should work together.
In the past, managers considered workers as machinery that could be bought and sold easily. To increase production, workers were subjected to long hours, miserable wages and undesirable working conditions. The welfare of the workers and their need were disregarded. The early twentieth century brought about a change in management and scientific management was introduced. This sort of management, started by Frederick Winslow Taylor, emphasised that the best way to increase the volume of output was to have workers specializing in specific tasks just like how a certain machine would perform a particular function. His implementation of this theory brought about tremendous criticism by the masses arguing that the fundamentals of Scientific Management were to exploit employees rather than to benefit them (Mullins, 2005)
Frederick Taylor thought that changes in the work process and/or rules would advance efficiency and productivity. He originated the scientific management approach in public administration. It was based on the idea that work processes should be observed via experiments which would greatly improve productivity. It would do so by doing away with the rule of thumb work methods and replacing them with the results of actual timed observations (14). The application of the scientific approach to management methods would lead to optimizing task time by simplifying the job. It would mean observing work processes to find the one best way to perform each job (15). Once the best way was discovered, all employees were to use it. The simplification of the job would improve task time. This method would lead to increased productivity, higher wag...
Scientific Management theory arose from the need to increase productivity in the U.S.A. especially, where skilled labor was in short supply at the beginning of the twentieth century. The only way to expand productivity was to raise the efficiency of workers.
Scientific Management also has a relationship with today’s environment because it has two advantages. Firstly, compare to the past, management is getting more scientific. How to improve production efficiency is the starting point of Scientific Management, and also is the final destination. It aims to unearth and cultivate workmen’s endowment, let them have the best performance in their work ---to obtain the highest efficiency farthest. Taylor said that the enormous increasing in production efficiency was the evident distinction to differentiate which a nation was civilized one or not. Moreover, it is the huge progressive emblem of human’s community. To change the production efficiency, he focused on management and labor. It based on “co-operation between the management and workers” (4) close together. The most quick and effective way is to import scientific analyses and knowledge into management practice, using scientific method instead of experienced way in various categories of work. “Bring everyone’s production efficiency into full play to accomplish maximum profit.”(5)For example, nowadays in the situation of teem of two workers in the factories, the fact is clearly identical. To understand that a worker and his helper, their workmanship become a extraordinary skill .The worker and his helper can produce two TV sets in one day, meanwhile, their competitor and helper can only produce one. After selling, the worker and helper can earn more money; the management can make more profits. In the same way, two competitive companies, different areas in a country, even between two nations, they will have the same situation while they in the same competitive market.
This paper describes on one of the famous management theorist Frederick Winslow Taylor, who introduced to society about the scientific management theories. This method was established a hundred years ago in 1911 early stage by Taylor in his work place. This article critically discusses about Taylor’s early stage, background, education, and his contribution to management theory, practice and society.
As the popularity of systematic management rose, there were many organizations that were implementing its main features such as employment of more unskilled workers and work standardization methods (Thompson and Mchugh, 2009, p.28 a). It had several features, a few of which included focusing on the manner in which production took place, being precise about how the activities were going about and to ensure that productivity and overall efficiency improved. Thus, the primary focus was on methods of production as compared to the end result of the production activity. This is when the role of Taylorism came about. Frederick Winslow Taylor, a name that transformed the management scheme forever. Also known as the Father of scientific management, Taylor was the brain behind recognizing the need for efficiency in the workplace. He first started off with his research at Midvale Steel Works, where he meticulously observed the workers and in order to develop his principles and theories with the prime focus of constructing a way to have full control over the activities taking place (Thompson and Mchugh, 2009, p.28 a).
Scientific management is a theory of management that analyzed and synthesized workflows. Its main objective was improving economic efficiency, especially labor productivity. It was one of the earliest attempts to apply science to the engineering of processes and to management. Its development began with Frederick Winslow Taylor in the 1880s and 1890s within the manufacturing industries. Its peak of influence came in the 1910s; by the 1920s, it was still influential but had begun an era of competition and syncretism with opposing or complementary ideas. Although scientific management as a distinct theory or school of thought was obsolete by the 1930s, most of its themes are still important parts of industrial engineering and management today.
...iency in the work place, scientific management attempts to offer great service to the public in the shortest time possible using the limited resources. This report has highlighted the basic characteristics of scientific management and its assumptions. For instance, it advocates maximum prosperity in an organization that can be achieved if employers and employees have a common interest. Scientific management is also based on assumptions of predictable market, mass market and soldering as natural. Its principles are also applicable in modern organizations where they are applied to achieve efficiency and reduce wastage. Many organizations adopt the concept of division of labor because assigning individual workers specific tasks increases productivity. Workers are also trained to be specialists in certain areas and these are all concepts based on scientific management.