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Scientific Management
SOPHISTICATION OF MASS PRODUCTION
Scientific management. According to Henry Ford, the assembly line was based on three
simple principles: "the planned, orderly, and continuous progression of the commodity
through the shop; the delivery of work instead of leaving it to the workman's initiative to find
it; an analysis of operations into their constituent parts." A scientific approach to these
principles, the next logical step in the organization of work, had already been enunciated by
the American industrial engineer Frederick W. Taylor (1856-1915). From his work an
entirely new discipline--industrial engineering or scientific management--emerged, in which
the managerial functions of planning and coordination were elevated to a primary position in
the productive process.

In Taylor's view, the task of factory management was to determine the best way for the
worker to do the job, to provide the proper tools and training, and to provide incentives for
good performance. Taylor broke each job down into its constituent motions, analyzed these to
determine which were essential, and timed the workers with a stopwatch. With superfluous
motion eliminated, the worker, following a machinelike routine, became much more
productive. In some cases, Taylor recommended a further division of labour, delegating some
tasks, such as sharpening tools, to specialists. (see also Index: time-and-motion study)

These studies were complemented by two of Taylor's contemporaries in the United States,
Frank B. and Lillian M. Gilbreth, whom many management engineers credit with the
invention of motion studies. In 1909 the Gilbreths, studying the task of bricklaying,
concluded that much motion was wasted by the worker in reaching down to pick up each
brick. They devised an easily adjusted scaffold that eliminated stooping and improved
average work performance from 120 to 350 bricks per hour. Industrial engineering ultimately
came to include all elements of factory operation within its compass--layout, materials
handling, and product design, as well as labour operations.

Taylor regarded his movement as "scientific" because he attempted to apply scientific

principles and measurement 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 labour, 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 a minimum of effort, and to receive more money. They also took for
granted that workers would submit without question to standardization of physical
movements and thought processes. Their system, however, ignored human feelings and
motivations, leaving the worker dissatisfied with the job. Furthermore, some employers
omitted the altruistic elements in Taylor's system and employed time and motion studies to
set high norms of production and speed up the production line while still keeping wages
down.

Industrial psychology. 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 from 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 declines in
both quality and productivity. Industrial engineers then faced the problem of motivating the
worker so that the combination of human labour and machine technology would achieve its
fullest potential. A partial solution came from the social sciences, and, in the process,
industrial psychology emerged. (see also Index: trade union)

The major premise of this new discipline was that mass production technologies affect the
worker both in the immediate job environment and in relations with fellow workers and
supervisors. The first important discoveries in the social context of mass production
technology resulted from experiments made by the American social scientist Elton Mayo
between 1927 and 1932 at the Hawthorne plant of the Western Electric Company, in Cicero,
Ill. Mayo, who earlier had studied problems of physical fatigue among textile workers in a
Philadelphia plant, was called in to the Hawthorne works, where industrial engineers were
considering the potential effect on productivity of changes in illumination. The inves

Source(s):

Link 1
http://www.willamette.edu/~fthompso/Mgmt…

Link 2

http://www.sociotechnical.org/archive.ht… A link to almost 500 Publications about the

socio-technical approach

Other useful links

http://www.sociotechnical.org, website of British Computer Soceity Sociotechnical Group

http://www.essex.ac.uk/chimera, A post-disciplinary institute mainly involved in

'sociotechnical' research and consulting

http://www.bayswaterinst.org, An important part of the activity of this institute is

sociotechnical

http://www.ifipwg82.org/tiki-index.php

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