F.W. Taylor contributed to the management theory of his day. He was hailed as the only person who made a substantial contribution to industrial management in a report prepared by ASME in 1912. Taylor also made contribution to productivity improvement and productivity management. For productivity management he proposed a new section or department "Elementary Rate Fixing Department." This idea of Taylor became "Industrial Engineering." Taylor is given the honor as the "Father of Industrial Engineering."
Taylor's first full length paper on productivity improvement was presented in 1895. According to him it was a system of management. He described it this way. "The advantages of this system of management (Taylor's Piece Rate System) are : The manufactures are produced cheaper under it. The system is rapid in attaining the maximum productivity of each machine and man."
In it, he proposed the necessity of a well understood and planned task for factory operators. Factory managers have to understand work and design a task which can be done in a day. When operator completes the task as planned he get a high pay. When he completes a portion of it only he gets less pay. This is a differential payment of piece rates. The idea behind it is that an operator is paid for his quality of output as well as his quantity of output. The expected quantity of output in a day is determined based on the science of work, developed by managers.
Taylor explained his ideas on new shop management theory in a book length paper, "Shop Management." In this book, Taylor defined management and also indicated the focus of his contribution.
The art of management has been defined, "as knowing exactly what you want men to do, and then seeing that they do it in the best and cheapest way.'" No concise definition can fully describe an art, but the relations between employers and men form without question the most important part of this art. In considering the subject, therefore, until this part of the problem has been fully discussed, the other phases of the art may be left in the background. - F.W. Taylor
Focus of Scientific management - Elimination of Inefficiency or Waste in Human Effort or Activity
In the paper/book "Scientific management" Taylor focused on elimination of inefficiency or waste in various activities done by people. The remedy suggested is development of science for various work activities of people. The focus of the approach can be understood from the following passages.
This paper has been written:
First. To point out, through a series of simple illustrations, the great loss which the whole country is suffering through inefficiency in almost all of our daily acts.
Second. To try to convince the reader that the remedy for this inefficiency lies in systematic management, rather than in searching for some unusual or extraordinary man.
Third. To prove that the best management is a true science, resting upon clearly defined laws, rules, and principles, as a foundation. And further to show that the fundamental principles of scientific management are applicable to all kinds of human activities, from our simplest individual acts to the work of our great corporations, which call for the most elaborate cooperation. And, briefly, through a series of illustrations, to convince the reader that whenever these principles are correctly applied, results must follow which are truly astounding.
This paper was originally prepared for presentation to the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. The illustrations chosen are such as, it is believed, will especially appeal to engineers and to managers of industrial and manufacturing establishments, and also quite as much to all of the men who are working in these establishments. It is hoped, however, that it will be clear to other readers that the same principles can be applied with equal force to all social activities: to the management of our homes; the management of our farms; the management of the business of our tradesmen, large and small; of our churches, our philanthropic institutions our universities, and our governmental departments.
Even though Taylor's principles are applicable to all management activities or many management activities, Taylor developed his paper or treatise with focus on all kinds of human activities. The responsibility of generalizing it to all activities of industry and business are left to others. Such a generalization or application to Industrial Engineering was done by Prof. Narayana Rao.
Taylor gave four principles of scientific Management
Principles of Scientific Management
Under scientific management the "initiative" of the workmen (that is, their hard work, their good-will, and their ingenuity) is obtained with absolute uniformity and to a greater extent than is possible under the old system; and in addition to this improvement on the part of the men, the managers assume new burdens, new duties, and responsibilities never dreamed of in the past. The managers assume, for instance, the burden of gathering together all of the traditional knowledge which in the past has been possessed by the workmen and then of classifying, tabulating, and reducing this knowledge to rules, laws, and formulae which are immensely helpful to the workmen in doing their daily work. In addition to developing a science in this way, the management take on three other types of duties which involve new and heavy burdens for themselves.
These new duties are grouped under four heads:
First. They develop a science for each element of a man's work, which replaces the old rule-of.-thumb method.
Second. They scientifically select and then train, teach, and develop the workman, whereas in the past he chose his own work and trained himself as best he could.
Third. They 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.
Fourth. There is an almost equal division of the work and the responsibility between the management and the workmen. The management take over all work for which they are better fitted than the workmen, while in the past almost all of the work and the greater part of the responsibility were thrown upon the men.
It is this combination of the initiative of the workmen, coupled with the new types of work done by the management, that makes scientific management so much more efficient than the old plan.
Interpretation of Principles of Scientific Management
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Increase in Management Effort Due to Scientific Management
The writer asserts as a general principle (and he proposes to give illustrations tending to prove the fact later in this paper) that in almost all of the mechanic arts the science which underlies each act of
each workman is so great and amounts to so much that the workman who is best suited to actually doing the work is incapable of fully understanding this science, without the guidance and help of those who are working with him or over him, either through lack of education or through insufficient mental capacity. In order that the work may be done in accordance with scientific laws, it is necessary that there shall be a far more equal division of the responsibility between the management and the workmen than exists under any of the ordinary types of management. Those in the management whose duty it is to develop this science should also guide and help the workman in working under it, and should assume a much larger share of the responsibility for results than under usual conditions is assumed by the management.
The body of this paper will make it clear that, to work according to scientific laws, the management must take over and perform much of the work which is now left to the men; almost every act of the workman should be preceded by one or more preparatory acts of the management which enable him to do his work better and quicker than he otherwise could. And each man should daily be taught by and receive the most friendly help from those who are over him, instead of being, at the one extreme, driven or coerced by his bosses, and at the other left to his own unaided devices.
This close, intimate, personal cooperation between the management and the men is of the essence of modern scientific or task management.
It will be shown by a series of practical illustrations that, through this friendly cooperation, namely, through sharing equally in every day's burden, all of the great obstacles (above described) to obtaining the maximum output for each man and each machine in the establishment are swept away. The 30 per cent to 100 per cent increase in wages which the workmen are able to earn beyond what they receive under the old type of management, coupled with the daily intimate shoulder to shoulder contact with the management, entirely removes all cause for soldiering. And in a few years, under this system, the workmen have before them the object lesson of seeing that a great increase in the output per man results in giving employment to more men, instead of throwing men out of work, thus completely eradicating the fallacy that a larger output for each man will throw other men out of work.
It is the writer's judgment, then, that while much can be done and should be done by writing and talking toward educating not only workmen, but all classes in the community, as to the importance of obtaining the maximum output of each man and each machine, it is only through the adoption of modern scientific management that this great problem can be finally solved. Probably most of the readers of this paper will say that all of this is mere theory. On the contrary, the theory, or philosophy, of scientific management is just beginning to be understood, whereas the management itself has been a gradual evolution, extending over a period of nearly thirty years. And during this time the employees of one company after another, including a large range and diversity of industries, have gradually changed from the ordinary to the scientific type of management. At least 50,000 workmen in the United States are now employed under this system; and they are receiving from 30 per cent to 100 per cent higher wages daily than are paid to men of similar caliber with whom they are surrounded, while the companies employing them are more prosperous than ever before. In these companies the output, per man and per machine, has on an average been doubled. During all these years there has never been a single strike among the men working under this system. In place of the suspicious watchfulness and the more or less open warfare which characterizes the ordinary types of management, there is universally friendly cooperation between the management and the men.
Scientific management resulted in development of number of methods, techniques and tools. It was incorporated as an approach in all management textbooks. The techniques and tools were covered in detail in production management textbooks. It also led to the development of Industrial Engineering as a discipline that is related to scientific management in engineering activities with engineering knowledge as the base for technical skills for accomplishing the task. Industrial engineer can be employed by managers to take care of the efficiency dimension of their managerial responsibility.
References
The Principles of Scientific Management
http://nraoiekc.blogspot.in/2013/08/importance-of-national-efficiency-fw.html
http://nraoiekc.blogspot.in/2013/08/scientific-management-introduction.html
Contribution of F.W. Taylor - Shop Management and Scientific Management
The papers classified into topics for easy understanding.
Biography of F.W. Taylor - Very Brief
Principles of Industrial Engineering - Taylor-Narayana Rao
Principles of Industrial Engineering were developed from the principles of scientific management by Prof K.V.S.S. Narayana Rao. They were Presented in the conference at NITIE (NCIETM) on 18 November 2016 at Mumbai India.
1. Develop science for each element of a man - machine system's work related to efficiency and productivity.
2. Engineer methods, processes and operations to use the scientific laws related to the work of machines, man, materials and other resources to improve economic efficiency and productivity.
3. Select or assign workmen based on predefined aptitudes for various types of man - machine work.
4. Train workmen, supervisors, and engineers in the new methods, install various modifications related to the machines that include productivity improvement devices and ensure that the expected
productivity is realized.
5. Incorporate suggestions of operators, supervisors and engineers in the methods redesign on a continuous basis.
6. Plan and manage productivity at system level
Expanded List
The six basic principles of industrial engineering were further expanded.
Principles of Industrial Engineering - Narayana Rao - Detailed List
Clicking on the link will take you to more detailed content on the principle
9. Principles of motion economy to be used in all IE studies in the area of human effort engineering
11. Work measurement
21. Cost measurement
The full paper on the principles by Prof. K.V.S.S. Narayana Rao is now available in IISE 2017 Annual Conference proceedings.
Presentation on Principles of Industrial Engineering First made by Dr. Narayana Rao on 23 May 2017 in IISE Annual Conference, Pittsburgh, USA.
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Article Part of January Revision Plan
MBA Core Management Knowledge - One Year Revision Schedule
Second Article of the day for revision: Evolution of Management Thought and Theory
Principles of Management Revision/Review Articles - List
Updated 18.1.2022, 6 August 2021
19 January 2018, 18 January 2017, 18 Jan 2016, 30 Dec 2014
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