How influential is scientific management in the 21st century?
How influential is scientific management in the 21st century?
1. Scientific management was originally developed in the 1800s by an economist, Adam Smith. He was interested in a factory that operated and produced pins, and through the breaking down of tasks e.g. division of labour he increased output from 20 pins per employee per day to 4,800 pins. However the greatest break through in scientific management came in the 1900s during the peak of the industrial revolution, and due to the emergence of the factory system more attention was being given to methods or factors that could contribute towards increasing output levels. It was here that Frederick Taylor began his studies into this field and his ideas were later furthered by individuals such as Gilbreth and Gantt. Despite each individual having a significant input into the study of scientific management Taylor was widely regarded as the ‘Father of Scientific Management’ and hence the term ‘Taylorism’ being introduced.
2. Technically Scientific Management is the “management thought concerned primarily with the physical efficiency of an individual worker” . However George Ritzer defined Scientific Management as a procedure that “produced nonhuman technology that exerted great control over workers” . In this statement Ritzer refers to the effect of scientific management. Before the study by Taylor and most businesses followed the old ‘Rule of Thumb’ management procedure in which the worker had the ‘initiative’ and control and therefore it was only his hard work that resulted in the businesses success or failure. Taylor studied his place of work, The Bethlehem steel Company, and came to the conclusion that the “Old Rule of Thumb’ was very inefficient. His time and motion studies were aimed at replacing the unproductive rule of thumb and replace it by the “one best way". He believed that there was one perfect method which could be adopted by employees to carry out a task and this would generate the best
1. Scientific management was originally developed in the 1800s by an economist, Adam Smith. He was interested in a factory that operated and produced pins, and through the breaking down of tasks e.g. division of labour he increased output from 20 pins per employee per day to 4,800 pins. However the greatest break through in scientific management came in the 1900s during the peak of the industrial revolution, and due to the emergence of the factory system more attention was being given to methods or factors that could contribute towards increasing output levels. It was here that Frederick Taylor began his studies into this field and his ideas were later furthered by individuals such as Gilbreth and Gantt. Despite each individual having a significant input into the study of scientific management Taylor was widely regarded as the ‘Father of Scientific Management’ and hence the term ‘Taylorism’ being introduced.
2. Technically Scientific Management is the “management thought concerned primarily with the physical efficiency of an individual worker” . However George Ritzer defined Scientific Management as a procedure that “produced nonhuman technology that exerted great control over workers” . In this statement Ritzer refers to the effect of scientific management. Before the study by Taylor and most businesses followed the old ‘Rule of Thumb’ management procedure in which the worker had the ‘initiative’ and control and therefore it was only his hard work that resulted in the businesses success or failure. Taylor studied his place of work, The Bethlehem steel Company, and came to the conclusion that the “Old Rule of Thumb’ was very inefficient. His time and motion studies were aimed at replacing the unproductive rule of thumb and replace it by the “one best way". He believed that there was one perfect method which could be adopted by employees to carry out a task and this would generate the best