F.W.Taylor (1856-1915)

Taylor was an American engineer who worked his way up through evening studies for a qualification. . From being an engineer in a steel plant, he became one of the first of a new breed of very influential management writers and theorists. He is known for defining the techniques of Scientific Management which is the study of "relationships between people and tasks for the purpose of redesigning the work process to increase efficiency".

He was writing at a time when factories were creating problems for management who needed new methods for dealing with managerial challenges. Taylor was one of the first to attempt to systematically analyze behaviour at work. His model was the "machine" therefore his ideas are often characterised as the "machine model of organisations" wherein each task was broken down to its smallest unit to identify the best way to do each job and the supervisor would teach the worker and make sure that the worker did only those actions essential to the task. This is why it is referred to as Scientific Management as Taylor attempted to make a science (remember cause & effect relationship?) for each element of work and restrict alternatives to remove human variability or errors.

Do you think that this system of work practise holds true & valid in our technological age?