“In the past the man has been first; in the future the system must be first.”
(1. Taylor 1911: IV)
This essay will explore why Taylor called his theory of management ‘scientific’. It will at first look at some fundamentals in Taylors work: measuring, standardizing and curing soldiering, then look at what happened with the perfect man, and further on conclude why this describes management as ‘scientific’.
Firstly the essay will look at how Taylor measured manufacturing. Taylor discovered by dividing every movement done by a man into small pieces and time each piece, you can calculate the fastest possible way to do the work. For example Gilbreth (2. 1910-1924) measured how workers stamped dating requisitions, the results are shown in the following table: 1. One handed method | 1900 cards per hour | | 2. Two handed method | 2300 cards per hour | 21% more output | 3. Two hands and one foot method | 3050 cards per hour | 61% more output |
(2. Developed from http://archive.org/details/OriginalFilm)
As shown in the table provided, Gilbreth measured how much time was spent on stamping dates on cards. Based on these measurements he invented improvements to the stamping motions. That gave extraordinary results. In the last test with two-handed movement and stamping with a pedal he got 61% more output than in the first test with one handed stamping. By making all the workers do the same movement, the manager could get 1150 more cards stamped per worker per hour. Gilbreth basically used science to measure and calculate the best possible way to do the work; the same did Taylor, and put it together in a system. Secondly, after figuring out how to standardize and make workers more effective, he defined how to make use of this science.
“The shop, and indeed the whole works, should be managed, not by the manager, superintendent, or foreman, but by the planning