Taylorism and Scientific Management

Principles of Taylorism.

Named after its creator, Frederick Taylor, Taylorism is the complete rationalization of all processes involved in the production of a product. The discipline is also referred to as scientific management, since it attempted to make a science out of the management of production processes by defining the "one best way" to do a job. Though the theory evolved through time, there were only a few simple principles in achieving scientific management: shift the responsibility of work organization to management, use scientific methods to establish the one best way to do the work, scientifically select and train workers, and monitor workers to ensure that they are doing their jobs properly and efficiently. The net result was that scientific management required laborers to match the speed of the machinery they used. Scientific management had both good and bad results. The positive side was that production rose by as...