Scientific Management
Essay
Introduction
Every organization needs to streamline their business processes in order to remain competent in
competitive market. Streamlining and optimized utilization of resources is very important for
increasing the productivity as well as revenue of the company. Many techniques and strategies
are being involved in different companies and if these strategies are successful then they are
adopted by most of the companies around the globe for standardization of their operations and
business processes.
Scientific management is a theory of management which was developed by Frederick Taylor and
this theory is also known as “Taylorism”. This main objective of this theory is to amalgamate
workflow and increase most important parameter of organizations known as “labor
productivity”. Labor productivity means is the amount of goods produced in a given amount of
time. Thus scientific management increases the throughput of labors by implementing scientific
techniques in the practices and thus increasing overall productivity of the company (De Grazia,
2005). Scientific management has contributed to the organizations in many ways by evolving
many best practices and strategies. Scientific management strategies were especially designed
towards increasing the productivity through various models such as soldiering, time and motion
studies and total quality management.
Taylor was the first person who differentiated between skilled labor and unskilled labor. Skilled
labors are skilled for particular tasks and thus they charge heavy. Unskilled labors have no
specific skill set which makes them less used in earlier days. They were only used for
mechanical jobs and hence they were paid very less (Rosen, 1993). Thus Taylor understood the
prime importance of unskilled labor being paid fewer amounts which increases the overall
revenue of the company. Thus the main principle of Taylor was to break the part of all the skill
needing jobs into smallest tasks which does not need any skill and can be done by unskilled
labor. Thus this increased the value of unskilled labor without paying much to these labors.
Hence the Taylorism or scientific management was considered very effective. The other basic
principle of scientific management was time and motion studies which were carried out by
Taylor in order to increase labor productivity. As per this study, the time is calculated for
completing tasks by a normal labor in ideal condition. Now motion of the task being conducted
is also changed by changing layout or floor plan measurement of company thus calculating the
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best possible time for completing a task or set of tasks. This helped in increasing labor and work
productivity.
Scientific management is a theory which has many pros and cons. It has proved to be extremely
effective for organizations in increasing their productivity as well as they have gained a lot of
controversies because of decreased employee satisfaction as well. Many organizations have
modified the versions of scientific management and employed it in their companies which have
helped them in reaping maximum benefits. Increasing productivity is a crucial task for
manufacturing based companies which has been handled very effectively by implementing
scientific management theories (Spender & Kijne, 1996). The disadvantages of scientific
management were nullified by making some modification in the strategies and thus scientific
management is still a popular approach of increasing labor productivity in many organizations.
Influence on management practice in contemporary organisation
Scientific management has several ways which has revolutionized the world and these major
theories included in scientific management are as follows:
1. Soldiering: As per Taylorism, labors in all the organizations are divided as direct labor
and indirect labor. Direct labors are those labors which are skilled for some tasks and
indirect labors are those labors that have no designated skills. Indirect labor or unskilled
labors are always cheaper than direct labor or skilled labor. Thus Taylor saw great
opportunity in employing unskilled labor for the same tasks for which skilled labor was
used and were charging higher amount.
Soldiering in scientific management is about breaking of complex tasks which need skill
into many small tasks which needs not much skill. These small tasks are those tasks
which can be done by hiring unskilled or indirect labors and training them to perform
those tasks (RMIT University, 2012). Scientific management theories and approaches are
of opinions that if a person routinely and continuously completes a task then he becomes
skilled in that task even if he was unskilled. This theory explained the breaking of
complex tasks into many simpler tasks which are being accomplished by unskilled labor.
This has greatly reduced the cost and expenditure involved and it has also resulted in
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increased productivity as a labor gains expertise in the routine task being done by that
labor.
Time and motion theory: This theory proved to be very successful in scientific management
package and considered to be helpful in increasing productivity by decreasing the time taken for
all tasks. This strategy is done by noting time taken for completion of tasks and the best time is
recorded for the completion. This is known as time and motion theory because motion is also
taken in account while calculating time taken for completing the work. Motion is changed by
changing the layout or changing floor plan of the workshops (Smith, 1776). This helps in
suggesting the best possible time taken for completion of tasks in an organization. This
calculation is ideal calculation of the time taken for doing certain task and thus it acts as
benchmark.
Scientific Management in an Organization: Honda Cars
Scientific management aims at bringing more sense and logic to the way in which management
world work and there are many cases where theory has been applied to practices and the
companies have gained benefit out of the same. Scientific management has been the hallmark of
any Honda Motor plants and they have been giving this an additional focus because of the
quality standards that they maintain. This has resulted in many organisational improvements and
changes in the way that they work in Honda. This focus on the scientific management and the
focus on quality have made it the way Honda has become (Farquhar, 1919). They focussed on
reducing the pain points in the system and at the same time they have made sure that they reduce
the redundancies that are there in the system that increase3s the cost. They have started at a small
scale and at the same time they had a big vision of becoming one of the leading manufacturers of
cars in the world that has resulted in the huge focus by the top management in maintaining the
productivity of the employees and ensure that they get the best products for the customers. They
have based themselves on the principles of Taylorism that has added value to the customers and
the company in terms of reducing the costs and improving the operational processes (Perkins,
1997).
, In case of Honda the success comes from factors like depending on cheap labour and making
sure that they follow the processes so that the quality standards are bang met. They also believe
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in the philosophy of man maximum machine minimum that involves people as an important part.
They have been basically automating the whole process by assembly line operations and this will
help them in mass production and thus achieve economies of scale. This has also improved the
labour since the work is standardised and at the same time there can be changes that can be made
in the system the work may be divided into smaller pieces and this will help the employees in
ensuring that they don’t need much of training and can learn things quickly. The work process is
improved over a period of time by means of time motion study, this would ensure that the
operational costs are reduced and the costs per car are much lesser as compared to that of normal
production (Tolliday & Zeitlin, 1987).
As mentioned above all the operations are automated and it may be said that the several special
instruments are being used to make sure that these assembly lines are possible. The employees
have t be trained in such a manner that they are used to the same and this saves a lot of time and
energy as most of the operations are automated (Morf, 1983). This would also ensure that the
errors in production may be minimised to minimal levels. They also ensure that the employees
are paid well and hence the level of action is less in this case that reduces the requirement for
training. Thus by combining good management techniques and the Honda way of production
they have ensured that they achieve high levels of productivity and in the mean while they also
ensure that there are improvements in the existing set up.
Critical view of scientific management
Contribution
This is a new technique that has been used where various scientific techniques are being used.
Taylor first proposed the use of science in production that can make human lives easier. Taylor’s
scientific management is the essence of personal judgments, opinions and experience instead of
accurate research and scientific knowledge. He believed in optimisation of resources and
ensuring that the right set of resources is being used for the right process. He believed that by
resorting to the best methods to work one would be able to reach a high standard of living. He
along with his colleagues has worked on a set of techniques that can help the companies in
improving the productivity (Hartness, 1912). They were the ones who has popularised the use of
time motion study and differential wage system that has been widely successful in the industry
circles.
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Limitation
In spite of all the benefits that are being discussed here there are some of the limitations. It
helped us in solving the initial issues and improves their operating efficiency, but it still doesn’t
address the issues that the company faces as a whole. One of the biggest mistakes in his theory is
that he believed in doing and planning separately which does not work in the normal scenario.
According to his method the management has to take the ownership of the whole process and it
is they who have to control the way things are done and this has resulted in multiple conflicts
that exists in organisation (Krenn, 2011).
Ethical and Moral Implications
The ethical as well as moral implications of scientific management are very high. The scientific
management is true believer of doing routine tasks as it increases productivity. But the major
controversy revolving around this theory is that it increases employee dissatisfaction which in
turn decreases productivity. This happens because of the monotonous jobs which are being done
by labor for years after years thus increases frustration and decreases the productivity of labor.
This also has given birth to an observation that career of labors don’t develop much if the
company is utilizing scientific management as they are involved in same monotonous work for
longer time. According to scientific management theories, monotonous work has made labor
force much more dissatisfied towards their job which increases attrition rate and decreases
productivity (Babbage, 1835).
Also as per human rights, taylor’s view of doing jobs and
completing tasks was far more different and harsh. Increasing labor productivity was good aspect
but treating humans as machines was completely insane and this was the major reason why
scientific management theories were considered to be unethical and immoral. Scientific
management theories and principles influenced many other companies but it also influenced
several criticisms making this management practice to be obliterated from the manufacturing
companies.
These ethical and moral implications should be valued and researched by the organizations
before implementing all techniques of scientific management. Scientific management also covers
relevant knowledge about total quality management which means that labors should always
strive hard in order to improve quality at every step of production. This brings immense pressure
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on labor force thus creating an image of a capitalist organization. This has severe moral and
ethical implication of scientific management theories or taylorism on organizations. Other moral
implication of scientific management was that taylorism used to turn a human into machine in
order to generate profits and increase productivity. This caused serious implications on Taylor
over his theory and was actually against human rights. Thus in spite of its usefulness, scientific
management theories lost its aura in long run.
Summary of Sustainability of Scientific Management
Scientific management theories were introduced for rightful cause which was under utilization of
resources and labor productivity. This was serious issue during few decades back and thus
scientific management theories were adopted with good intention. These theories were even
successful in most of the cases but were also remained a part of controversy because of increased
pressure on labors for quality management as well as decreased productivity because of
monotonous and routine jobs.
There are several theories that were used for the production and Taylor’s theory of scientific
management has been one of them that has been successful and has helped he companies in
getting better productivity (Maier, 1970). Innovation is the key that drives today business. Most
of the companies these days are dependent of the scientific theories and at the same time they
have made necessary changes to the traditional theories just to ensure that it works in the context
that they are operating. In Honda there are several theories that are being implemented and at the
same time they have made necessary changes in the existing systems such as division of labour
and extension of job role to match them and at the same time customise the same based on the
needs of the organisation. They have improved their productivity and have reduced their costs as
a result of the same and this has resulted in them fattening the bottom lines. In these days were
technology is playing the key role in driving the business we may say that by merging both the
old school and new school of production systems is the only way in which the companies can
grow further.
In fact many companies are utilizing scientific management in their companies by removing the
negatives of these theories. For example, processes streamlining and layout optimization is very
crucial processes in all the operation based companies ranging from automobile companies to
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retail giants. All these modern companies are utilizing the scientific management theories but in
different names. Total quality management is also a part of scientific management which was
earlier considered as capitalist strategy is now adopted in almost all organizations. The major
changes made to this strategy are that it is now incentive based and thus labors are benefitted
when they adopt a strategy which helps in increasing quality.
Thus it can be summarized that scientific management theories and strategies are basic
foundation stone of quality management in organizations. These theories should be modified and
adopted as per requirement of the organizations and thus they will be able to reap maximum
benefits. Instead of criticizing scientific management organizations should embrace this theory
and increase labor productivity thus increasing revenues.
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References
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