The manifestation of Frederick Taylor’s theory of scientific management was a major breakthrough in traditional approach to management process. Simultaneously, as management theory evolved gradually Taylor’s theory was severely criticised and its role decreased dramatically to the extent that nowadays it is argued whether scientific management still exists. It is not hard to find examples of Scientific Management in today’s modern world; we can see the car industry which use a similar approach as well as the computer manufacturing plants even some hospitals, almost all of them function more efficiently due to the application of Scientific Management. However, as stated these organisations use a ‘similar’ approach, so therefore, in this essay I will attempt to discover if or how much is Frederick Taylor’s theory of scientific management still used by managers in its pure form.
Taylor’s experience at the Midvale Steel Company led to the birth of scientific approach to management. As he worked there he recognised that the labour productivity was largely inefficient due to a workforce that functioned by “rules of thumb”. He started his experiments at the workplace in order to replace the traditional “rules of thumb” by factual scientific knowledge. The backbone of this activity was his “Time And Motion Study” where he worked out how he can reduce the number of motions in performing a task in order to increase productivity. This element of his theory is still widely used by managers today, which is evident in McDonalds, who use one standardised process e.g. to make a burger, which workers have to follow. This standardised process and the 5 principles of scientific management* put together have evidently been used and proved to be the best way for such organisations to reach their ultimate productivity as they are the world leading fast food chain. Places for example Dubai or India, customers are guaranteed their order within 60 seconds, and this guarantee can only have come from the application of Taylor’s Time and Motion study. Taylor’s experiment led him to think, workers are motivated solely by money and he promoted the idea of “A fair days pay for a fair days work” which I will go into later in this essay.
* The 5 principles of scientific management: