Frederick Winslow Taylor was a management theorist who took a scientific approach to management. In 1911, Frederick Taylor published ‘The Principles of Scientific Management’ in which he described an application of a scientific method to management would greatly improves the productivity of workers. Taylor noticed that many workers did their jobs their own way and without clear and uniform specifications. He believed that this caused them to lose efficiency and perform below their true capacities. He also believed that this problem could be fixed if workers were taught and helped by supervisors to perform their job in the right way.
Taylor thought that there was, “one best way” to do a job. Taylor used the concept of time study and motion study. Motion study is the science of reducing a job or task to its basic physical motions. He would break up a job in its component parts and measure each to the one hundredth of a minute to develop the most efficient way to perform the job, and then had workers trained how to work most efficiently under supervisory support. This approach is known as scientific management and includes these four steps.
1. Develop for every job a science’ that includes rules of motion, standardized work processes and proper working conditions.
2. Carefully select workers with the right abilities for the job.
3. Carefully train workers to do the job and give them the proper incentives to cooperate with the job science’.
4. Support workers by carefully planning their work and by smoothing the way as they go about their jobs.
Taylor tried to use science to improve the productivity of people at work. His principles are found in many management settings today.
Frank and Lillian Gilbreth were also management theorists with a scientific approach. Frank Gilbreth, born on July 7, 1868, was a bricklayer, a building contractor, and a management engineer. Lillian Gilbreth, born May 24, 1878, was a university graduate with a PHD. Frank and Lillian Gilbreth pioneered motion studies as a management tool. A good example is the famous study where they reduced the number of motions used by bricklayers and tripled their productivity. From the start of his career in the building industry, Frank Gilbreth noticed that workers did not perform the task of laying a brick using the same motions each time, causing inefficiency in their work. Frank developed a way in which a brick layer would lay a brick using the most basic motions required, and would do it the same way for each brick. He reduced the number of motions made in laying a brick from eighteen to four and a half. This greatly increased the productivity and efficiency of brick layers.
