Frederick Winslow Taylor and the Management Science

By Theodoros Pitikaris Lule tekniska universitet [email protected]

In 1911 Frederick Winslow Taylor had introduced the principals of Scientific Management. In this paper the contribution Frederick Winslow to the Scientific Management is presented. Furthermore the framework that constitutes the Taylorism (the methodology of Frederick Winslow Taylor) is proved. Keyword: Management, Taylor, Taylorism, Management

Within Scientific Management we stand over the fundamental Taylors principles: clear delineation of authority responsibility separation of planning from operations incentive schemes for workers management by exception task specialization These ideas had been extended by Frank and Lillian Gilbert in order to include the law on human motivation (by Lillian Gilbert), followed by Gantt who had mentioned the importance of time in scheduling and he introduced the Gantt Graphs and Charles Bedaux. After year of knowledge accumulation; nowadays we are able to clarify the contribution of Taylors theory in modern organisational behaviour. For instance, we know that even in new ways of Entrepreneurship, like call centres, there are specific constrains and directions, in forms of organizational norms (i.e manual/how-to) which are used by employees (Accel-Team2004). More strictly the affirmation practices are applied to Banking sector, within, a tight framework is enforced, by management team, to banks employees. As a paradigm we can referee the loan market, where a loan is difficult to be granted if certain criteria are not in power. There are a variety of reasons that make tailors, still applicable in the modern management science: 1. Firstly, his assumptions about the motivation, management and organisation are still in use: The domination of English-Saxony way of think via, the politico-economic reality what we used to characterise as pax Americana model (The USAs Imperium) has

contribute the most towards to establishing the Protestant ethics as a Standard way of modern doing business. In other word is quiet ethical to declare the Enterprise targets as first priority, while social or personal (individual) needs are bearable to follow within the priorities man agent.

2. Furthermore the laissez faire economic dogma

has as major scope the maximisation or investment return by improving the organisations efficiency. By the tern Efficiency we denote a continue lowering of marginal cost (productivity). Taylor suggests the idea of one way: management gives tight directions to each job post, describing even the simplest thing that may occur and the workers have followed loyally these directions. This methodology is promising a homomorphism (Standard ) in the way of is organisation operations, thus workers are getting, familiar with the way that things are taking place and eventually is resulting a higher level of individuals specialization and thus a higher productivity level. Father, by showing a standard way of work in combined with the element that even the simplest aspects of every day job is well defined is expected that we can secure the provision of standard quality of the services or products that are delivered by a firm, and thus there is not direct interaction between who is working in the production line and the quality of service or product that is served (Pitikaris 2004).

These factors are quiet important, nowadays where the companies are operating in a global market. The globalism has as major result a number of companies to develop different production lines worldwide, in order to exploit local competitive advantages, offered by different countries or regions (costs, labour laws, raw materials e.t.c) In the face of aforementioned development management teams are facing a numerous challenges (Pitikaris 2004): a) Differences in culture and religion of the workers b) Differences in working habits c) Differences in level of education and professionalism d) Differences in understanding e) Differences in local government policies. These conditions may affect dramatically the productivity level and even the quality of the firms output. For instance if there is not a globally definite way how to handle the salutation of Greek customer will Hellene the customer that will initiate a discussion with a phrase like Geia chara or Hello and Chinese employee that is quiet possible to interpret the close but identical symbol of NI HAO. Nevertheless management face the challenge to find the ways that will ensure to deliver the same quality in all branches either is Hilton Reception in India or Cyprus. By using Scientific Management methodologies, is possible to equip the working groups, with such facilitation that will allow a standard way of response indecently to the origin of the working group, across a frim

branches in worldwide level . We achieve homogeny that is so important, especially in Industry of services (Francis 1986). Another important issue about Scientific Management is that we may deploy benchmarking tools in order to measure the labour capital efficiency, and spot advantages and weakness within a group (i.e F.W.Harris). Furthermore, Organisation management is most of times, heavily influenced by Operational Research as major tool to enforce the firms position within the market that it operates, but also to increase the marginal Income. Finally thanks to computer technology we are able to create simulation models of management and production process, in order to enlighten in a more precise way the forecasts over market ecosystem developments. Of course the form of Scientific Management, nowadays is far more developed that what Taylor had introduced in 1911, but is undoubted that in the core of Management Science, is still alive the idea of increased production output via specialization. Still these ideas has now been enriched with new understanding over the Diversity of leadership and Management, the benefits from the association to democratically organised of labour unions, and the contribution , towards the firm profitability, of the fair wages (Jacob 1998) and social marketing.

References

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