Taylorism
Frederick Winslow Taylor (1956-1915) observed in his role as a apprentice machinist that workers used different and mostly inneficient work methods. He also noticed that few machines ever worked at the speed of which they were capable. Also, the choice of methods of work were left at the discretion of the workers who wasted a large part of their efforts ussing inefficient and unstead rules-of-thumb. They kept they craft secrets to themselves (between the group members) and worked at a collectively agreed rate that was below their ability. Therefore, he contrasted natural soldiering (i.e. the inclination to take it easy) with what he labelled systematic soldiering (i.e. the conscious and deliberate restriction of output by operators). His objectives were to achieve: * Efficiency by incresing the output per worker and reducing deliberate “underworking” by employees * Predictability of job performace by standardizing tasks by dividing up tasks into small, standardized, closely specified subtasks. * Control by establishing discipline through hierarchical authority and introducing a system whereby all management’s policy decisions could be implemented.
Frederick Taylor’s 5 principles of scientific management 1) A clear division of tasks and responsabilitis between management and workers. 2) Use of scientific methods to determine the best way of doing a job. 3) Scientific selection of the person to do the newly designed job 4) The training of the selected worker to perform the job in the way specified. 5) Surveillance of workers through the use of hierarchies of authority and close supervision.
Taylor’s approach involved studying each work task. He chose routine, repetitive tasks performed by numerous operatives where study could save and increse production. His studies try to answer this question: “How long should it take do to any particular job in the machine shop?” and discover “one-best-way”