The Concept of Taylorism Management Essay

Initially, Frederick Taylor was an industrial engineer and was interested in practical outcomes. He observed workers at work, and made accurate measurement of what they did in a time-and-motion study. By conducting this, Taylor discovered that much resource was wasted and a one-best way in performing the task should be found in a scientific analysis. After years of experiments, Taylor proposed four principles to determine optimal production methods.

Replace rule-of-thumb work methods with methods based on a scientific study of the tasks.

Cooperate with the workers to ensure that the scientifically developed methods are being followed.

Scientifically select, train, and develop each worker rather than passively leaving them to train themselves.

An acceptable level of performance and a reward system for a task should be established to motivate people.

These principles were first implemented in Henry Ford’s car factory, he pioneered mass production with the aid of division of labour, standardization and assembly lines. His approach was so successful that he increased car sales by 2 million, reduced costs by two-thirds and pushed Ford into the leading car factory. From then onwards, the principles of Taylorism have been widely applied in other sectors and have a profound impact on today’s management. The following essay will examine how Taylor’s four principles influences the management of modern organizations.

To begin with, within the central focus on efficiency improvement, the first principle --- “scientific study of tasks” is still largely deployed in modern organizations. By gathering knowledge from the production, they conduct scientific analysis and find the one-best way. They discovered that division of labour was the key. It breaks working procedures into simple and routine tasks, which reduces labour cost, eliminates unnecessary tasks and speeds up the work. Hence, “Taylorism is a method for the efficient production” (Sabel). Although finding a modern...