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Henry Ford & Frederick W. Taylor:

A Comparison of Methods and Principles

Early Life
Fords Early Life
Henry Ford was one of eight children of William and Mary Ford. He was born on
the family farm near Dearborn, Michigan, then a town eight miles west of Detroit, on July
30, 1863. Abraham Lincoln was president of the 24 states of the Union, and Jefferson
Davis was president of the 11 states of the Confederacy. Ford attended a one-room
schoolhouse for eight years when he was not helping his father with the harvest. At age 16
he walked to Detroit to find work in its machine shops. After three years, during which he
came in contact with the internal-combustion engine for the first time, he returned to the
farm, where he worked part-time for the Westinghouse Engine Company and in spare
moments tinkered in a little machine shop he set up. Eventually he built a small farm
locomotive, a tractor that used an old mowing machine for its chassis and a homemade
steam engine for power.
Ford moved back to Detroit nine years later as a married man. His wife Clara
Bryant, had grown up on a farm not far from Fords. They were married 1888, and on
November 6, 1893, she gave birth to there only child, Edsel Bryant. A month later Ford
was made chief Engineer at the main Detroit Edison Company plant with responsibility for
maintaining electric service in the city 24 hours a day. Because he was on call at all times,
he had no regular hours and could experiment to his hearts content. He had determined
several years before to build a gasoline-powered vehicle, and his first working gasoline

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engine was completed at the end of 1893. By 1896 he had completed his first horseless
carriage, the Quadricycle, so called because the chassis of the four-horsepower vehicle
was a buggy frame mounted on four bicycle wheels. Unlike many other automotive
inventors, including Charles Edgar and J. Frank Duryea,
Elwood Hayes, Hiram Percy Maxim, and his Detroit
acquaintance Charles Brady King, all of whom had built
selfpowered vehicles before Ford but who held on to their
creations. Ford sold his to finance work on a second vehicle,

Ford's Quadricycle

and a third, and so on.

During the next seven years he had various backers, some of whom, in 1899,
formed the Detroit Automobile Company (later the Henry Ford Company), but all
eventually abandoned him in exasperation because they wanted a passenger car to put on
the market while Ford insisted on improving whatever model he was working on, saying
that it was not yet ready for customers. He built several racing cars during these years,
including the 999 racer driven by Barney Oldfield, and set several new speed records. In
1902 he left the Henry Ford Company, which subsequently reorganized as the Cadillac
Motor Car Company. Finally, in 1903, Ford was ready to market an automobile. The Ford
company was incorporated, this time with a mere $28,000 in cash put up by ordinary
citizens, for Ford had, in previous dealings with backers, antagonized the wealthiest men in
Detroit.
Taylors Early Life
Frederick W. Taylor was born in Philadelphia, PA, March 20, 1856. Taylor was the
son of a lawyer. He entered Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire in 1872, where he

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led his class scholastically. After passing the entrance examination at Harvard, he was
forced to abandon plans for matriculation, as his eyesight had deteriorated from night
study. With sight restored in 1875, he was apprenticed to learn the trades of patternmaker
and machinist at the Enterprise Hydraulic Works in Philadelphia.
Three years later he went to the Midvale Steel Company, where, starting as a
machine shop laborer, he became successively shop clerk, machinist, gang boss, foreman,
maintenance foreman, head of the drawing office, and chief engineer.
In 1881, at 25, he introduced time study at the Midvale plant. The profession of
time study was founded on the success of this project, which also formed the basis of
Taylors subsequent theories of management science.
Comparison of Their Early Lives
Ford was born into a farm family of the Midwest and Taylor was the son of a
Lawyer, born in East. This may be why Ford sort wealth and Taylor seemed more
interested in academics, although they accomplished both. Ford had no education other
than what he learned in the one room schoolhouse. Taylor attended the Phillips Exeter
Academy, where his intelligence was made clear, accepted into Harvard, but was unable to
attend. Both Ford and Taylor worked in machine shops and were machinists. Ford was an
industrialist and Taylor was a scientist, although Taylor held over forty patents of his own.

1863
1856

Fords life span

Taylors life span

1915

1947

Manufacturing Methods
Ford
The Assembly line. Though prototypes of the assembly line can be traced to
antiquity, the true ancestor of this industrial technique was the 19th-century meatpacking
plant in Cincinnati, Ohio, and in Chicago, where overhead trolleys were connected to
convey carcasses from worker to worker. When these trolleys were connected with chains
and power was used to move the carcasses past the workers at a steady pace, they formed a
true assembly line. Stationary workers concentrated on one task, performing it at a pace
dictated by the machine, minimizing unnecessary movement, and dramatically increasing
production.
Drawing upon observations of the meatpacking industry, Henry Ford designed an
assembly line that began operation in 1913. The result was a remarkable reduction of
manufacturing time for magneto flywheels from 20 minutes to five minutes. This success
stimulated Ford to apply the technique to the chassis assembly. Under the old system, by
which parts were carried to a stationary assembly point, 12.5 man-hours were required for
each chassis. Using a rope to pull the chassis past stockpiles of components, Ford cut labor
time to six man-hours. With improvementsa chain drive to
power the assembly line, stationary locations for the
workmen, and workstations designed for convenience and
comfortassembly time fell to 93 man-minutes by the end of
April 1914.

Early Assembly Line

Interchangeable Parts and Machine Tools. The

material basis for mass production was laid by the development of the machine-tool

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industrythat is, the making of machines to make machines. Though some basic devices
such as the woodworking lathe had existed for centuries, their translation into industrial
machine tools cabable of cutting and shaping hard metals to precise tolerances was brought
about by a series of 19-century innovators, first in Britain and later in the U.S. With
precision equipment, large numbers of identical parts could be produced at a low cost with
a small work force.
Although Ford did not invent interchangeable parts, he certainly put this method to
good use. His automobile manufacturing facilities could not have functioned without it.
Could you imagine having to file down each part by hand and fit it to the area in which it
applied?
Analysis of Operations into Constituent Parts. This was a method of breaking
down complex jobs into smaller parts allowing unskilled labor to be able to carry out the
job with little training or experience. This also reduced production cost by lowering wages.
This allowed the management to replace workers easily. Ford now had the ability to hire
almost anyone, including immigrants who spoke little English. This separation of
simplified operations was necessary in order to carry out the steps needed to make the
assembly line work.
Taylor
Time and Motion Study. In Taylors view, the task of factory management was to
determine the way for the worker to do the job, to provide the proper tools and training,
and to provide incentives for good performance. Taylor broke down each job into its
constituent motions, analyzed these to see which were essential, and timed the workers
with a stopwatch. With superfluous motion eliminated, the worker, following a

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machinelike routine, became much more productive. In some cases, Taylor recommended
a further division of labor, delegating some tasks, such as sharpening tools, to specialists.
The great precision of the Ford conveyor belt operation was made possible by these time
and motion studies pioneered by Taylor.
Work at Midvale Steel. Taylor suggested that production efficiency in a shop or
factory could be greatly enhanced by close observation of the individual worker and
elimination of waste time and motion in his operation. Though the Taylor system
provoked resentment and opposition from labor when carried to extremes, its value in
rationalizing production was indisputable and its impact on development of massproduction techniques immense. In 1884 Taylor became chief engineer at Midvale and
completed the design and construction of a novel machine shop. But soon after he
resigned his post at Midvale to become general manager of the Manufacturing Investment
Company.
Was Ford Using Taylors Principles
In 1881 Taylor began his time and motion studies at Midvale Steel. Some 33 years
later in 1914, the model T began to role out of Fords state of the art automobile plant.
Much of Taylors work can be seen in the operation of the assembly line and many of
Fords operations. Whether Ford new he was using Taylors methods, or would admit it, is
unknown. I can not find any references that Taylor was in contact with Ford.

Effects on Upper Management

Fords Effect and Treatment of Upper Management
The executive structure of the Ford Motor Company was a de facto structure. The
lines of command which emanated from Fords position were the radii of so many

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concentric circles. They could be arbitrarily retracted or extended and the rational for
either decision as often as not was grounded in Fords philosophy of conflict.
He constantly played man against man. Mr. Fords idea was that both men would
work much harder because if one man lagged he would soon loose statusHe would give
one of the men a job to do and at a later date he would give the other man a job along the
same lines and before long they would realize they were both working on the same job.
Conflict, Ford believed, was the most effective way not only of stimulating competitive
effort but of sorting out weak executives who were no use to the company.
Ford refused to accept or even to acknowledge the necessities of organization. He
didnt believe in administration. He didnt believe in a big organization. He wanted to be
the whole cheese and everything had to go through his hands first. Ford objected greatly if
he wasnt informed on something.
How Scientific Management Effected Upper Management
No one bricklayer, then, can work much faster than the one next to him. Nor has
any one workman the authority to make other men cooperate with him to do faster work.
It is only through enforced standardization of methods, enforced adoption of the best
implements and working conditions, and enforced cooperation that this faster work can be
assured. And the duty of enforcing the adoption of standards and of enforcing this
cooperation rests with the management alone. The management must supply continually
one or more teachers to show each new man the new and simpler motions, and the slower
men must be constantly watched and helped until they have risen to their proper speed. All
of those who, after proper teaching, either will not or can not work in accordance with the
new methods at the higher speed must be discharged by the management. The

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management must also recognize the broad fact that workman will not submit to this more
rigid standardization and will not work extra hard, unless they receive extra pay for doing
it.
The management must also see that those who prepare bricks and the mortar and
adjust the scaffold, etc., for the bricklayers, cooperate with them by doing their work just
right and always on time; and must also inform each bricklayer at frequent intervals as to
the progress he is making, so that he may not unintentionally fall off in his pace. Thus it
will be seen that it is the assumption by the management of new duties and new kinds of
work never done by employers in the past that makes this great improvement possible, and
that, without this new help from the management, the workman even with full knowledge
of the methods and with the best of intentions could not attain these startling results.
(From The Principles of Scientific Management, Taylor, 1911, p.83)
ComparisonContrast
It is clear to see from the above sections that Ford liked to run his company as a
dictatorship. His managers were not able to make decisions on their own, even if it may
have been in the best interest of the company. Running a company as large as the Ford
Motor Company in this manner may have been a mistake on Fords part, however great an
industrialist he may have been.
Taylor, on the other hand, believed that management should be committed to the
common worker. Taylor believed that his improved methods of work performance would
not take place without the marriage of management and worker.

Treatment of Laborers
Five-dollar a Day Pay Rate
The five-dollar day had been the keystone of the arch leading to Fords ideal
factory. From Zanzibar to Peru, men heard of it who knew nothing else of what the Ford
Motor Company was doing. They learned that Ford had nearly doubled wages while
reducing hours from 9 to 8. But when the world convulsion began, what would happen to
wages and hours.
Inflation, mild at first, became
almost uncontrollable after the United
States entered World War I. By the end of
1918 the cost of living index in Detroit
stood 78% above the level of early 1914. In
other words, the real value of the $5 wage
had shrunk to $2.80, little better than the

Announcement of $5 day

$2.35 average paid in 1913. Although nearly all elements of society suffered from
inflation, middle class salary workers being especially hard hit, and although the
government had tried to put a brake on wartime wage increases, the Ford Company saw
that it must act. Some groups of employees were worse off than before the celebrated
increase. A skilled mechanic in the category which in 1913 was paid $3.42 a day, for
example, by the end of 1918 received $5, with a 1914 purchasing power of only $2.80.
Indeed, highly trained workers, such as tools-makers became difficult to hire and keep
during the war, for they could get better wages elsewhere than in Ford employ.

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Employee Saving Plan
One benefit to the workers in which Ford took great pride was the introduction at
the beginning of 1920 of a generous employees savings plan. Investment certificates,
comparable to non-voting preferred stock in the company, were prepared in denominations
of $100. Any employee could buy them as long as he stayed on the payroll. They yielded
6% guaranteed interest, with such additional dividends as company directors might think
as warranted. In spite of a provision that they were non-negotiable and non-assignable,
they were clearly a desirable investment. Current purchases were limited to 1/3 of an
employees pay, to which he might add all his bonus, and his interest and dividends.
Nobody could withdraw money from bank accounts or other investments to buy
certificates. This plan in general form was maintained until September, 1941, and existing
accounts were then permitted to draw interest until 1947, when they were all liquidated. It
was an unequivocal success.
How Taylors Time and Motion Study Affected Laborers
Taylor regarded his movement as scientific because he attempted to apply
scientific principles and measurements to the work process. Many previous advances in
manufacturing had been made by applying scientific principles to machines in order to
make them more efficient, and, through his minute subdivision of labor, Taylor sought to
do the same to the work process itself. This scientific approach, however, neglected the
human element, so that Taylor in effect converted the work process from a relationship
between worker and machine into a relationship between two machines.
Scientific management theorists assumed that workers desired to be used
efficiently, to perform their work with minimum effort, and to receive more money. They

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also took for granted that workers would submit without question to standardization of
physical movements and though processes. Their systems, however, ignored human
feelings and motivations, leaving the worker dissatisfied with the job. Furthermore, some
employers omitted the altruistic elements in Taylors system and employed time and
motion studies to set high norms of production and speed up the production line while still
keeping wages down.
In the decade after 1910, when the principles of scientific management were being
applied wholesale in U.S. industry, union opposition arose. Though the unions approved
more efficient production arising form better machinery and management, they condemned
the speedup practice and complained in particular that Taylorism deprived workers of a
voice in the conditions and functions of their work. Complaints were also made that the
system caused irritability and fatigue along with physiological and neurological damage
among workers. Misuse of the human element in production was causing both declines in
quality and productivity. Industrial engineers then faced the problem of motivating the
worker so that the combination of human labor and machine technology would achieve its
fullest potential. A partial solution came form the social sciences, and, in the process,
industrial psychology emerged.

Government Involvement
Fords Campaign for U.S. Senate
Political feeling, high even during W.W.I, became bitter as the
end approached. The republicans in 1918 were determined to wrest
control of congress from the Democrats. Party leaders on both sides
looked about for the strongest candidates. To President Wilson, bent on

Ford's campaign

poster

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achieving American leadership in the league of nations, the Senate was of paramount
importance in peace making. Every seat would count. Although Michigan was
traditionally Republican, one Wilson man could possible be elected thereHenry Ford.
Naturally the president and his friends turned to Ford.
Josephus Daniels had been trying to overcome Fords reluctance to run. Bring
him over to the White House, Wilson told Daniels, and Ill see what I can do. When
Ford came, the President gave him a hearty handshake.
Mr. Ford, he said, we are living in difficult timestimes when men must
sacrifice themselves for their country. I would give anything on earth if I could lay down
this job that I am trying to do, but I must carry onYou are the only man in Michigan who
can be elected and help to bring about peace you so much desire. I wish you therefor to
overcome your personal feelings and interests and make the race.
Ford had gone to Washington reluctant but open to suasion, for the office tempted
him. Next day the newspapers announced his consent, with a statement that he wished to
do everything possible to assist the President.
After the primaries, Truman Newberry became the Republican candidate, and Ford
the Democratic candidate. The race became bitter when Newberry accused Ford of using
his influence to keep his son Edsel out of the war. As the party battle rose to a climax,
Fords friend Harvey Firestone sent a competent attorney, Bernard M. Robinson, into
Michigan to help knit the Democratic forces together and put some fight into them.
Democratic speakers and editors, meanwhile, denounced Newberry for his excessive
primary expenditures, and in mid-September Senator Atlee Pomerene of Ohio gained
national attention by a resolution for a Senate investigation. With a dark scandal gathering

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around Newberrys name, Democratic advertisements pressed strongly the charge of
corruption.
On election day, Newberry won by a narrow margin. On the face of the returns,
Michigan gave him 220,054 votes against 212,487 for Ford. The heavy Detroit vote for
Ford, who carried Wayne County by more than 35,000 votes, had been expected, but his
strong showing in the upper peninsula was surprising.
Taylors Testimony Before the Special House Committee
One contemporary study showed by 1912 there were 60 Taylor and 200 Emerson
systems in use, that production went up 100 percent at Midvale Steel, 50 to 75 percent at
Bethlehem Steel and on the Santa Fe Railroad, 250 percent at Tabor, and 200 percent at
Link Belt. All this happened without widespread turmoil or displaced workers and was
seen as beneficial by management and labor alike.
Nevertheless, organized union opposition mounted. Taylorism became a lightning
rod for one of the greatest social struggles of all time. The Watertown strike attracted so
much attention that Congress at the end of 1911 ordered an investigation of charges that
workers were mistreated under scientific management. Union leaders badgered Taylor
mercilessly during his four days as a witness. The pro-union committee chairman refused
to let him define what he meant by first-class man, insisting on the implication that only a
few exceptional people could ever hold jobs under his system.
The panel concluded that there was no evidence that scientific management abused
workers. It added that it was too soon to evaluate effects on health, pay, and labor costs. It
proposed no legislation. Still, anti-Taylor forces used the hearings as a lever to prohibit the

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Army or Navy from spending money on systematizing. Thus ending the first attempt,
quite successful until then, to make government agencies more efficient.

Final Days
Fords Final Years
In 1918 Ford bought a newspaper, The Dearborn independent, and in it published a
series of scurrilous attacks on the International Jew, a mythical figure he blamed for
financing the war; in 1927 he formally retracted his attacks and sold the paper. He gave
old-fashioned dances at which capitalists, European royalty, and company executives were
introduced to the polka, the Sir Roger de Coverly, the mazurka, the Virginia reel, and the
quadrille; he established small village factories; he built one-room schools in which
vocational training was emphasized; he experimented with soybeans for food and durable
goods; he sponsored a radio hour in which quaint essays were read to plain folks; he
constructed Greenfield Village, a restored rural town; and he built what was later named
the Henry Ford Museum and filled it with American artifacts and antiques from the era of
his youth When American society was almost wholly agrarian. In short, he was a man who
baffled even those who had the opportunity to observe him close at hand, all except James
Couzens, Fords business manager from the founding of the company until his resignation
in 1915, who always said, You cannot analyze genius and Ford is a genius.
Ford died at his home on April 7, 1947, exactly 100 years after his father had left
Ireland for Michigan. His holdings in Ford stock went to the Ford Foundation, which had
been set up in 1936 as a means of retaining family control of the firm and which
subsequently became the richest private foundation in the world.

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Taylors Final Years
Taylor retired at the age of 45 but continued to devote time and money to promote
the principles of scientific management through lectures at universities and professional
societies. From 1904 to 1914, with his wife and three adopted children, Taylor lived in
Philadelphia. The American Society of Mechanical Engineers elected him president in
1906, the same year he was awarded honorary doctor of science degree at the University of
Pennsylvania. Many of his influential publications first appeared in the Transactions of
that society, namely, Notes on Belting (1894); A Piece-rate System (1895); Shop
Management (1903); and On The Art of Cutting Metals (1906). The Principles of
Scientific Management was published commercially in 1911.
Taylors fame increased after his testimony before the Special House Committee.
Considering himself a reformer, he continued expounding the ideals and principles of his
system of management until his death in 1915.
Scientific Management Still Works
If the proof is in the pudding, consider New United Motor Manufacturing Inc.
(NUMMI) in Fremont, CA, a joint venture between General Motors and Toyota. Paul
Adler of the University of California School of Business Administration had this to say
after a two-year study of the plant. It has succeeded in employing an innovative form of
Taylors time-and-motion regimentation on the factory floor not only to create world-class
productivity and quality but also to increase worker motivation and satisfaction. Whats
more, NUMMIs intensely Taylorist procedures appear to encourage rather than discourage
organizational learningand, therefor, continuous improvementYet by far the most
striking advantage of standardized work is that it gives continuos improvement a specific

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base to build on. As one manager put it, You cant improve a process you dont
understand. In this case, standardization is essential precondition for learningThe
difference between traditional Taylorism and the learning orientated NUMMI version
resembles the difference between computer software designed to be idiot proof and the
kinds of computer systems that are meant to leverage and enhance their users
capabilitiesThe idiot proof system may be easy to use, but it is also static and boring.
Leveraging systems make demands on the operator. They take time to learn and require
thought and skill to use, but they are immensely flexible, responsive, and satisfying once
masteredTaylorist time-and-motion discipline and formal bureaucratic structures are
essential for efficiency and quality in routine operations. But these principles of
organizational design need not lead to rigidity and alienation. NUMMI points the way
beyond Taylor-as-villain to the design of a truly learning-orientated bureaucracy.

References:
Dont Throw Scientific Management Out With the Bathwater, Freeman, Michael G.,
Quality Progress, April, 1996
Ford: Expansion and Challenge: 1915-1933, Nevins, Allan; Hill, Frank E., 1957
Henry Ford Britannica Online,
http://www.eb.com:180/cgi-bin/g?DocF=macro/5002/40.html
History of the Organization of Work: Organization of work in the industrial age
Britannica Online,
http://www.eb.com:180/cgi-bin/g?DocF=macro/5006/66/5.html
History of the Organization of Work: Organization of work in the industrial age:
SOPHISTICATION OF MASS PRODUCTION Britannica Online,

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http://www.eb.com:180/cgi-bin/g?DocF=macro/5006/66/7.html
Industrial Engineering and Production Management: Production systems: MASS
PRODUCTION: Pioneers of mass production methods. Britannica Online,
http://www.eb.com:180/cgi-bin/g?DocF=macro/5003/8/5.html
Mass Production Britannica Online,
http://www.eb.com: 180/cgi-bin/g?DocF=micro/379/97.html
Productive Workplaces, Weisbord, Marvin R., 1987
Scientific Management, Taylor, Frederick W., 1972
Taylor, Frederick W. Britannica Online,
http://www.eb.com:180/cgi-bin/g?DocF=micro/584/40.html
Taylorism: (F.W. Taylor & Scientific Management) Britannica Online,
http://www.quality.org/TQM-MSI/taylor.html
Time-and-Motion Study Britannica Online,
http://www.eb.com:180/cgi-bin/g?DocF=micro/594/88.html
The First Henry Ford: A Study in Personality and Business Leadership, Jardim, Anne,
1970

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