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In this article I will discuss scientific management. I will cover all the points that relate to this subject.

Scientific management is defined as ‘the use of a scientific
fact-finding method to determine empirically the right ways to perform
tasks’. In this scientific management philosophy,
Taylor had different types of process to manipulate the weaknesses of
the industries during his time. They were ‘task management system,
time study, standardised tools and procedures, individualised work,
management responsibility for training, scientific selection and
shorter working hours and rest pauses’.
However, many of his contemporaries had objected his ideas and the
purpose of this essay is to identify Taylor’s scientific management
process and the criticisms that were given to him.

Taylor’s first step was to develop a scientific approach to managerial
decision making, which was ‘intended to contrast with the unscientific
approach in traditional management such as rule of thumb, guesswork,
precedent, personal opinion or hearsay’. Taylor
applied his time study theory for his first step, towards scientific
management. His solution to the tradition management problem was to
‘break down the work task into its constituent motions; to eliminate
wasted motions so the work would be done in the one best way’. Taylor’s time study system involved two phases -
analytical and constructive. For analytical phase, ‘each job was
broken into as many simple elementary movements as possible’. This meant that the time study was to enable each
worker to have their small contribution to the work; which would mean
less tedious job rather than in the traditional management, where each
worker’s job was tough and tedious, leading to more fatigue. Another
phase was the constructive phase, where it ‘involved building a file
of elementary movements and times to be used wherever possible on
other jobs or classes work’. With this
constructive phase, it enabled Taylor to further consider developing a
theory of enhancing the usefulness of tools, procedures and machines.
The theory was called standardised tools and procedures process, where
it was to solve great inefficiencies of usage of tools and procedures
during working hours as ‘proper tools were not always used or even
owned’.

The second step by Taylor was to ’scientifically select and then
train, teach, and develop the workman, whereas in the past workers
chose their own work and trained by themselves as best he could’. He attempted his system called the task
management system, in which ‘each worker each day was given a definite
task with detailed written instructions and an exact time allowance
for each element of the work based on time study, and methods, tools,
and materials were standardised’. This task
specifies not only what is to be done but how it is to be done and the
exact time allowed for doing it. Whenever ‘the workman succeeds in
doing his task right, and within the time limit specified, he receives
an addition of from 30 to 100 percent to his ordinary wages’.

Taylor’s third step was to ‘heartily cooperate with the men so as to
insure all of the work being done in accordance with the principles of
the science which has been developed’.
According to Locke, Taylor’s money bonus system stated
that each individual worker should be paid according to the orders
being carried out by their supervisors or employers or leaders. This
included paying extra wages for them if their work performance was
better than expected. Taylor stated that there were two ways of
differential payment rate: ‘those who did not meet the standard
received an ordinary rate of pay and those who did attain the standard
received extraordinary pay’. This was to heartily
cooperate with the workers so that they could overcome soldiering and
had more individualism in terms of wages paid to them for their
effort, not their status; in terms of lower-class workers or
first-class workers.

The fourth and last step in Taylor’s scientific management was to have
‘an almost equal division of the work and the responsibility between
the management and the workmen’. In the past
almost all of the work and the greater part of the responsibility were
thrown upon the men. The money bonus system, according to Taylor, had
three aims to his system; each worker should be given according to
their ability, each worker should produce the maximum amount of work
in which a first-rate man of his class can do and thrive and the
worker should be paid 30 percent to 100 percent according to the
amount of work he had done, beyond the average of his status.

Taylor had many critics among his fellow contemporaries. During his
time, the socialist Upton Sinclair had claimed that Taylor’s
scientific management system was exploitative to workers because of
workers’ wages increased by a lesser amount although the productivity
had improved by 100 percent; in which he argued that the workers’
wages should be increased according to the amount of production
increas. In those days, the supervisors and top
managers‘ groups had opposed to Taylor’s task management system
because ‘it contracted their authority and range of activities,’
resulting in the intention to ’strip authority from the general
manager to place it in the hands of specialised, lower-level managers’. This would mean that their orders and positions
weren’t as very important as before, although the groups of managers
and supervisors still had the upper hand.

In conclusion, Frederick W. Taylor was the utmost figure in the
formulation of scientific management theory. Through his research
studies of scientific principles and operations in manual working
environment, he was regarded as the father of scientific management.
His theory contained ‘more advocacy than fact, and was more reform
minded than scientific’. However, his view and
systems are being applied to management but with many changes as
Freeman stated that ‘part of scientificmanagement’s
longevity is due to the improvements that have been made over time,
thereby encouraging its widespread use and international acceptance.’

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