FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

Frederick W. Taylor and his Primary Contributions to the Management World

Frederick W. Taylor and his Primary Contributions to the Management World

Introduction

Frederick Winslow Taylor was an American engineer who devised the scientific organization of labor, born in the city of Germantown (Pennsylvania) in 1856 and died in Philadelphia in 1915. Taylor was one of the main representatives of the mainstream engineering (industrial engineering) in a science organization and management. This trend held in the organization of production and service processes in various areas of the economy (Wrege & Greenwood, 1991).

Discussion

Background

Taylor ran a series of research in companies in which he worked. The two most common are research in sorting the balls for bearings bicycle and research into the work of loaders employed in loading and unloading of railway siding and square component materials such as ore, coal, coke and others.

The result of these studies has focused on:

The whole process of division production of the simplest steps, which got a description of the workers every day; dependence of wages on the tasks carried out (plus bonuses)

The elimination of the most vulnerable workers and leaving the best. Thanks to these improvements was the possibility of reducing the number of employees, a shorter working day, or raise funds, and also increased productivity.

Taylor's training and his unique ability enabled Taylor to lead swiftly to pass a machine shop, where he observed the work of the workers who are responsible for cutting metals. It was this practical observation where Frederick drew the idea of analyzing the job, breaking it down into simple tasks, strictly timed, and require workers performing the necessary tasks at the right time (Copley, 2002).

This allowed analysis of the work also organize tasks in a way that minimized downtime by movements of the worker or changes of activity or tools, and to establish piece rates (per piece produced) versus time estimated production, wages should act as an incentive for intensifying the pace of employees. The tradition consequently replaced by the planning workshops, job control from the hands of the workers to directors of the company and ending the struggle between workers and employers in terms of productivity standards (Taylor, 2003).

After personally fighting to impose the alternative method in his shop, went to work as chief engineer on a Pennsylvania steel company from 1898 to 1901. Taylor surrounded himself with a team that developed the methods, completed its organizational innovations with purely technical ...