Scientific management

Scientific management is a field of study which was started by Frederick Winslow Taylor (1856-1915). In his honor, the domain is sometimes called Taylorism. Taylor believed he could improve work in a company and its management through scientific procedures. This would solve the social problems in the company and guarantee wealth for all people. Very important components are:

• Making a difference between planning work and its execution
• Studying how long a process step takes to get estimates for the time it should take
• Wages based on productivity
• Prescribing the daily workload

It was mainly used for manufacturing processes, where workers operated machines to get a product. Today, the main problems seen with this approach is that the workers were treated like machines and not like human beings. It is the division of labour pushed to its extreme.

Related pages

• Fordism