McDonald's Scientific Management
McDonald's Scientific Management
Case study
I chose the example of McDonald's to demonstrate the existence of Taylor's principles in modern organizations, because of McDonald's outstanding role in the food industry. Thus, "McDonald's is the leading global foodservice retailer with more than 31,000 local restaurants serving more than 58 million people in 118 countries each day" (www.aboutmcdonalds.com). Furthermore, its influence on the restaurant culture is unique. Hence, Love concluded that "no one has had more impact than McDonald's in modernizing food processing and distribution in the last 3 decades".
A distinguishing principle of Taylor's work was his demand to use scientific methods to determine the most efficient way of doing work. Taylor stressed that a scientific study and analysis was crucial to find the 'one best way'. McDonald's adopted this assumption and became famous for its scientific approach towards the preparation and serving of food. Thus, it is stated that McDonald's was the first corporation that "had attempted to make a science out of the preparation of the one restaurant meal that had mass appeal". Furthermore, reports showed that McDonald's reformed the fast food business by "showering the lowly hamburger, French fry, and milk shake with more attention, more study, and more research than anyone had dreamed of doing", in addition to McDonald's minute standardization and "systematic planning of each job, broken down into the smallest steps". It said that "the company's industrial engineers measuring in seconds of time used computerised time-study methodology to plan the equipment layout and work scheduling". Their aim of taking out "the guesswork (...) of food preparation" is consistent with Taylor's beliefs to a great extent.
A further basic principle was Taylor's claim to shift all responsibility for the organization of work from the worker to the manager, which is often recapitulated as the separation of the head from the hand,
Case study
I chose the example of McDonald's to demonstrate the existence of Taylor's principles in modern organizations, because of McDonald's outstanding role in the food industry. Thus, "McDonald's is the leading global foodservice retailer with more than 31,000 local restaurants serving more than 58 million people in 118 countries each day" (www.aboutmcdonalds.com). Furthermore, its influence on the restaurant culture is unique. Hence, Love concluded that "no one has had more impact than McDonald's in modernizing food processing and distribution in the last 3 decades".
A distinguishing principle of Taylor's work was his demand to use scientific methods to determine the most efficient way of doing work. Taylor stressed that a scientific study and analysis was crucial to find the 'one best way'. McDonald's adopted this assumption and became famous for its scientific approach towards the preparation and serving of food. Thus, it is stated that McDonald's was the first corporation that "had attempted to make a science out of the preparation of the one restaurant meal that had mass appeal". Furthermore, reports showed that McDonald's reformed the fast food business by "showering the lowly hamburger, French fry, and milk shake with more attention, more study, and more research than anyone had dreamed of doing", in addition to McDonald's minute standardization and "systematic planning of each job, broken down into the smallest steps". It said that "the company's industrial engineers measuring in seconds of time used computerised time-study methodology to plan the equipment layout and work scheduling". Their aim of taking out "the guesswork (...) of food preparation" is consistent with Taylor's beliefs to a great extent.
A further basic principle was Taylor's claim to shift all responsibility for the organization of work from the worker to the manager, which is often recapitulated as the separation of the head from the hand,