Scientific management

“ The attention of the entire organization, as well as of the individual worker, is held by Scientific Management and its teaching, because all parts of Scientific Management are related, and because Scientific Management provides for scientifically directed progression. Every member of the organization knows that the standards which are taught by Scientific Management contain the permanent elements of past successes, and provide for such development as will assure progress and success in the future. ”

“ To prove that the best management is a true science, resting upon clearly defined laws, rules, and principles, as a foundation. And further to show that the fundamental principles of scientific management are applicable to all kinds of human activities, from our simplest individual acts to the work of our great corporations, which call for the most elaborate cooperation. ”

“ When, however the elements of this mechanism, such as time study, functional foremanship etc., are used without being accompanied by the true philosophy of management, the results are in many cases disastrous. And, unfortunately, even when men who are thoroughly in sympathy with the principles of scientific management undertake to change too rapidly from the old type to the new, without heeding the warnings of those who have had years of experience in making this change, they frequently meet with serious troubles, and sometimes with strikes, followed by failure. ”

“ In this connection, however, it is proper to again state that during the thirty years that we have been engaged in introducing scientific management there has not been a single strike from those who were working in accordance with its principles, even during the critical period when the change was being made from the old to the new. ”

“ It is true that with scientific management the workman is not allowed to use whatever implements and methods he sees fit in the daily practise of his work. Every encouragement, however, should be given him to suggest improvements, both in methods and in implements. And whenever a workman proposes an improvement, it should be the policy of the management to make a careful analysis of the new method, and if necessary conduct a series of experiments to determine accurately the relative merit of the new suggestion and of the old standard. ”

“ Broadly speaking, then, the best type of management in ordinary use may be defined as management in which the workmen give their best initiative and in return receive some special incentive from their employers. This type of management will be referred to as the management of "initiative and incentive" in contradistinction to scientific management, or task management, with which it is to be compared. ”

“ Before scientific management was discovered, business management and machinery already had robbed industry of productive incentives, of the real incentive to production; a realization on the part of the worker of its social value and his appreciation of its creative content. All that was left for scientific management to gather together for its direction were bits of experience which workers gained by their own experimental efforts at how best to handle tools. ”

“ On the contrary, the theory, or philosophy, of scientific management is just beginning to be understood, whereas the management itself has been a gradual evolution, extending over a period of nearly thirty years. ”

“ It is not possible to enter into a full explanation of the methods of "scientific management." Briefly, by a process of scientific selection it puts each worker in the job for which he is best fitted, and teaches him exactly how to use the most efficient tools with which he would be provided. ”

“ Scientific management is scientific as it subjects the labor operations on each job, each specific job to be performed in a factory, to a testing out of the energy consumed; to discovering how to secure labor's maximum productivity without waste of time or energy. It is scientific as the manager's state of mind towards the physical and psychological reactions of the workers is one of inquiry and a readiness to accept, as facts of mechanical science are accepted, the reaction of the workers. ”

“ And whenever the new method is found to be markedly superior to the old, it should be adopted as the standard for the whole establishment. The workman should be given the full credit for the improvement, and should be paid a cash premium as a reward for his ingenuity. In this way the true initiative of the workmen is better attained under scientific management than under the old individual plan.
The history of the development of scientific management up to date, however, calls for a word of warning. The mechanism of management must not be mistaken for its essence, or underlying philosophy. ”

“ Scientific management, on the contrary, has for its very foundation the firm conviction that the true interests of the two are one and the same; that prosperity for the employer cannot exist through a long term of years unless it is accompanied by prosperity for the employee, and vice versa; and that it is possible to give the workman what he most wants—high wages—and the employer what he wants—a low labor cost—for his manufactures. ”

“ Needs for Teaching Under Scientific Management. — The needs for this teaching have been stated, but may be recapitulated here.
1. Worker may not observe his own mistakes.
2. Worker has no opportunity under the old industrial conditions to standardize his own methods.
3. Worker must know standard practice.
4. Waste can be eliminated by the teaching.
5. Right habits can be instilled.
Sources of Teaching Under Scientific Management. — The sources of teaching under Scientific Management are
Methods of Teaching Under Scientific Management. ”

“ We hear so much in our day about scientific management that we may be led to begin inquiring skeptically if its value is not exaggerated in the interests of professional organizers, systematizers, etc. ”

“ Scientific Management aims in every way to encourage initiative. The outline here given as to how men must, ultimately, under Scientific Management, be selected serves to show that, far from being "made machines of," men are selected to reach that special place where their individuality can be recognized and rewarded to the greatest extent. ”

“ One great problem which those introducing Scientific Management have to face is exactly how to make the worker understand the relation of the new type of management to the old. The usefulness of the written system in use in most places where it is planned to introduce Scientific Management as a means of making the worker understand the transition has, perhaps, not been appreciated. ”

“ Functionalization under Scientific Management separates planning from performing. This means that the specialists who plan must teach the specialist who performs, this being the way in which they co-operate to the greatest personal advantage to all.
Basis of Division into Functions. — Under Scientific Management divisions are made on the basis of underlying ideas. Functions are not classified as they are embodied in particular men, but men are classified as they embody particular functions. This allows of standardization, through which alone can progress and evolution come quickest. ”

“ In order that the work may be done in accordance with scientific laws, it is necessary that there shall be a far more equal division of the responsibility between the management and the workmen than exists under any of the ordinary types of management. Those in the management whose duty it is to develop this science should also guide and help the workman in working under it, and should assume a much larger share of the responsibility for results than under usual conditions is assumed by the management. ”

“ It has been claimed by many otherwise able authorities that many results claimed as due to Scientific Management are really the results of new machinery, tools or equipment that have been invented. 9 Scientific Management certainly can lay no claim to credit for efficiency which comes through inventions neither suggested nor determined by it. ”

“ It is the writer's judgment, then, that while much can be done and should be done by writing and talking toward educating not only workmen, but all classes in the community, as to the importance of obtaining the maximum output of each man and each machine, it is only through the adoption of modern scientific management that this great problem can be finally solved. ”

“ But unfortunately most of the readers of these papers have mistaken the mechanism for the true essence. Scientific management fundamentally consists of certain broad general principles, a certain philosophy, which can be applied in many ways, and a description of what any one man or men may believe to be the best mechanism for applying these general principles should in no way be confused with the principles themselves.
It is not here claimed that any single panacea exists for all of the troubles of the working-people or of employers. ”

“ And the means which the writer firmly believes will be adopted to bring about, first, efficiency both in employer and employé and then an equitable division of the profits of their joint efforts will be scientific management, which has for its sole aim the attainment of justice for all three parties through impartial scientific investigation of all the elements of the problem. For a time both sides will rebel against this advance. The workers will resent any interference with their old rule-of-thumb methods, and the management will resent being asked to take on new duties and burdens ”

“ But while the whole world would profit by this increase in production, the manufacturer and the workman will be far more interested in the especial local gain that comes to them and to the people immediately around them. Scientific management will mean, for the employers and the workmen who adopt it—and particularly for those who adopt it first—the elimination of almost all causes for dispute and disagreement between them. ”