Frederick Winslow Taylor (March 20, 1856 – March 21, 1915) was an American
mechanical engineer
Mechanical may refer to:
Machine
* Mechanical system, a system that manages the power of forces and movements to accomplish a task
* Machine (mechanical), a system of mechanisms that shape the actuator input to achieve a specific application of ou ...
. He was widely known for his methods to improve
industrial efficiency
Lean manufacturing, or lean production, is a Methods of production, production method derived from Toyota's 1930 operating model "The Toyota Way" (Toyota Production System, TPS). The term "Lean" was coined in 1988 by John Krafcik, and defined in 19 ...
.
[ He was one of the first ]management consultants
Management (or managing) is the administration of an organization, whether it is a business, a not-for-profit organization, or government body.
Management includes the activities of setting the strategic management, strategy of an organization ...
. In 1911, Taylor summed up his efficiency techniques in his book '' The Principles of Scientific Management'' which, in 2001, Fellows of the Academy of Management
The Academy of Management is a professional association
A professional association (also called a professional body, professional organization, or professional society) seeks to advocacy, further a particular profession, the interests of individ ...
voted the most influential management book of the twentieth century. His pioneering work in applying engineering principles to the work done on the factory floor was instrumental in the creation and development of the branch of engineering that is now known as industrial engineering
Industrial Engineering is an engineering profession that is concerned with the optimization of complex processes
A process is a series or set of Action (philosophy), activities that interact to produce a result; it may occur once-only or be recur ...
. Taylor made his name, and was most proud of his work, in scientific management; however, he made his fortune patenting steel-process improvements. As a result, Scientific management
Scientific management is a theory of management that Analysis, analyzes and wikt:synthesis#Noun, synthesizes workflows. Its main objective is improving economic efficiency, especially Workforce productivity, labor productivity. It was one of the ...
is sometimes referred to as Taylorism.
Biography
Taylor was born in 1856 to a Quaker
Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian
Protestantism is a form of Christianity that originated with the 16th-century Reformation, a movement against what its followers perceived to be Criticism of the Catholi ...

family in Germantown, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
highlighting Germantown Borough prior to the Act of Consolidation, 1854
Germantown (Pennsylvania German language, Pennsylvania German: ''Deitscheschteddel'') is an area in Northwest Philadelphia, Northwest Philadelphia. Founded by Germans, Ger ...
. Taylor's father, Franklin Taylor, a Princeton
Princeton University is a private
Private or privates may refer to:
Music
* "In Private
"In Private" was the third single in a row to be a charting success for United Kingdom, British singer Dusty Springfield, after an absence of nearly two ...

-educated lawyer, built his wealth on mortgages
A mortgage loan or simply mortgage () is a loan
In finance, a loan is the lending of money by one or more individuals, organizations, or other entities to other individuals, organizations etc. The recipient (i.e., the borrower) incurs a ...
. Taylor's mother, Emily Annette Taylor (née Winslow), was an ardent abolitionist
Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, was the movement to end slavery. In Western Europe and the Americas, abolitionism was a historic movement that sought to end the Atlantic slave trade and liberate the enslaved people.
The British ...
and a coworker with Lucretia Mott
Lucretia Mott (''née'' Coffin; January 3, 1793 – November 11, 1880) was an Quakers in North America, American Quaker, Abolitionism in the United States, abolitionist, women's rights activist, and social reformer. She had formed the idea of re ...

. His father's ancestor, Samuel Taylor, settled in Burlington, New Jersey
Burlington is a city
A city is a large human settlement.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. ...
, in 1677. His mother's ancestor, Edward Winslow
Edward Winslow (18 October 15958 May 1655) was a English Separatist, Separatist who traveled on the ''Mayflower'' in 1620. He was one of several senior leaders on the ship and also later at Plymouth Colony. Both Edward Winslow and his brother, G ...

, was one of the fifteen original Mayflower Pilgrims who brought servants or children, and one of eight who had the honorable distinction of Mister. Winslow served for many years as the Governor of the Plymouth colony.
Educated early by his mother, Taylor studied for two years in France and Germany and traveled Europe for 18 months. In 1872, he entered Phillips Exeter Academy
(Not for Oneself) la, Finis Origine Pendet (The End Depends Upon the Beginning) gr, Χάριτι Θεοῦ (By the Grace of God)
, location = 20 Main Street
, city = Exeter, New Hampshire, Exeter
, state ...
in Exeter, New Hampshire
Exeter is a town
A town is a . Towns are generally larger than s and smaller than , though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world.
Origin and use
The word "town" shares an origin with th ...
, with the plan of eventually going to Harvard and becoming a lawyer like his father. In 1874, Taylor passed the Harvard entrance examinations with honors. However, due allegedly to rapidly deteriorating eyesight, Taylor chose quite a different path.
Instead of attending Harvard University
Harvard University is a private
Private or privates may refer to:
Music
* "In Private
"In Private" was the third single in a row to be a charting success for United Kingdom, British singer Dusty Springfield, after an absence of nearly tw ...

, Taylor became an apprentice patternmaker and machinist
A machinist is a tradesperson or trained professional, who not only operates machine tools, but has the knowledge of tooling and materials required to create set ups on machine tools including, but not limited to milling machines, grinders, l ...

, gaining shop-floor experience at Enterprise Hydraulic Works in Philadelphia (a pump-manufacturing company whose proprietors were friends of the Taylor family). He left his apprenticeship for six months and represented a group of New England machine-tool manufacturers at Philadelphia's centennial exposition. Taylor finished his four-year apprenticeship and in 1878 became a machine-shop laborer at Midvale Steel Works. At Midvale, he was quickly promoted to time clerk, journeyman machinist, gang boss over the lathe hands, machine shop
A machine shop is a room, building, or company where machining
truck of the US Army with machinists working on automotive parts
Machining is a process in which a material (often metal) is cut to a desired final shape and size by a controlled mate ...

foreman
__NOTOC__
A foreman, forewoman or foreperson is a supervisor
A supervisor, or also known as foreman, boss, overseer, facilitator, monitor, area coordinator, or sometimes gaffer, is the job title of a low level management position that is primarily ...
, research director, and finally chief engineer of the works (while maintaining his position as machine shop foreman). Taylor's fast promotions reflected both his talent and his family's relationship with Edward Clark, part owner of Midvale Steel. (Edward Clark's son Clarence Clark, who was also a manager at Midvale Steel, married Taylor's sister.)
Early on at Midvale, working as a laborer and machinist, Taylor recognized that workmen were working their machines, or themselves, not nearly as hard as they could (a practice that at the time was called " soldiering") and that this resulted in high labor costs for the company. When he became a foreman he expected more output from the workmen. In order to determine how much work should properly be expected, he began to study and analyze the productivity
Productivity is the efficiency
Efficiency is the (often measurable) ability to avoid wasting materials, energy, efforts, money, and time in doing something or in producing a desired result. In a more general sense, it is the ability to do thin ...
of both the men and the machines (although the word "productivity" was not used at the time, and the applied science of productivity had not yet been developed). His focus on the human component of production Taylor labeled scientific management
Scientific management is a theory of management that Analysis, analyzes and wikt:synthesis#Noun, synthesizes workflows. Its main objective is improving economic efficiency, especially Workforce productivity, labor productivity. It was one of the ...
.
While Taylor worked at Midvale, he and Clarence Clark won the first tennis doubles tournament in the 1881 US National Championships, the precursor of the US Open. Taylor became a student of Stevens Institute of Technology
Stevens Institute of Technology is a Private university, private research university in Hoboken, New Jersey. Incorporated in 1870, it is one of the oldest technological universities in the United States and was the first college in America solel ...
, studying via correspondence and obtaining a degree in mechanical engineering in 1883. On May 3, 1884, he married Louise M. Spooner of Philadelphia.
From 1890 until 1893 Taylor worked as a general manager and a consulting engineer to management for the Manufacturing Investment Company of Philadelphia, a company that operated large paper mills in Maine and Wisconsin. He was a plant manager in Maine. In 1893, Taylor opened an independent consulting practice in Philadelphia. His business card read "Consulting Engineer - Systematizing Shop Management and Manufacturing Costs a Specialty". Through these consulting experiences, Taylor perfected his management system. His first paper, ''A Piece Rate System'', was presented to the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) in June 1895.
In 1898 he joined Bethlehem Steel
The Bethlehem Steel Corporation was an American steel
Steel is an alloy
An alloy is an admixture of metal
A metal (from Ancient Greek, Greek μέταλλον ''métallon'', "mine, quarry, metal") is a material that, when freshly ...

to solve an expensive machine-shop capacity problem. While at Bethlehem, he discovered the best known and most profitable of his many patents: between 1898 and 1900 Taylor and Maunsel White conducted comprehensive empirical tests, and concluded that tungsten alloyed steel doubled or quadrupled cutting speeds. The inventors received for the English patents alone, although the U.S. patent was eventually nullified.
Taylor was forced to leave Bethlehem Steel in 1901 after discord with other managers. Now a wealthy man, Taylor focused the remainder of his career promoting his management and machining methods through lecturing, writing, and consulting. In 1910, owing to the Eastern Rate Case, Frederick Winslow Taylor and his Scientific Management methodologies became famous worldwide. In 1911, Taylor introduced his The Principles of Scientific Management paper to the ASME, eight years after his Shop Management paper.
On October 19, 1906, Taylor was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Science
Doctor of Science ( la, links=no, Scientiae Doctor), usually abbreviated Sc.D., D.Sc., S.D., or D.S., is an academic research degree awarded in a number of countries throughout the world. In some countries, "Doctor of Science" is the degree used f ...
by the University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a in , Pennsylvania. The university, established as the College of Philadelphia in 1740, is one of the nine chartered prior to the . , Penn's founder and first president, advocated an edu ...

. Taylor eventually became a professor at the Tuck School of Business
The Tuck School of Business (also known as Tuck, and formally known as the Amos Tuck School of Administration and Finance) is the graduate business school
A business school is a university-level institution that confers degrees in business admini ...
at Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College ( ) is a private
Private or privates may refer to:
Music
* "In Private
"In Private" was the third single in a row to be a charting success for United Kingdom, British singer Dusty Springfield, after an absence of nearly tw ...
. In early spring of 1915 Taylor caught pneumonia and died, one day after his fifty-ninth birthday, on March 21, 1915. He was buried in West Laurel Hill Cemetery
West Laurel Hill Cemetery is a cemetery
A cemetery, burial ground or graveyard is a place where the remains of dead people are burial, buried or otherwise interred. The word ''cemetery'' (from Greek language, Greek , "sleeping place") implies ...
, in Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania
Bala Cynwyd ( ) is a community in Lower Merion Township, Pennsylvania
Lower Merion Township is a Township (Pennsylvania), township in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania and part of the Philadelphia Main Line. As of ...
.
Work
Taylor was a mechanical engineer who sought to improve industrial efficiency
Lean manufacturing, or lean production, is a Methods of production, production method derived from Toyota's 1930 operating model "The Toyota Way" (Toyota Production System, TPS). The term "Lean" was coined in 1988 by John Krafcik, and defined in 19 ...
. He is regarded as the father of scientific management
Scientific management is a theory of management that Analysis, analyzes and wikt:synthesis#Noun, synthesizes workflows. Its main objective is improving economic efficiency, especially Workforce productivity, labor productivity. It was one of the ...
, and was one of the first management consultants
Management (or managing) is the administration of an organization, whether it is a business, a not-for-profit organization, or government body.
Management includes the activities of setting the strategic management, strategy of an organization ...
and director of a famous firm. In Peter Drucker
Peter Ferdinand Drucker (; ; November 19, 1909 – November 11, 2005) was an Austrian-American management consultant, educator, and author, whose writings contributed to the philosophical and practical foundations of the modern business corp ...
's description,
Taylor's scientific management consisted of four principles:
#Replace rule-of-thumb work methods with methods based on a scientific study of the tasks.
#Scientifically select, train, and develop each employee rather than passively leaving them to train themselves.
#Provide "Detailed instruction and supervision of each worker in the performance of that worker's discrete task" (Montgomery 1997: 250).
#Divide work nearly equally between managers and workers, so that the managers apply scientific management principles to planning the work and the workers actually perform the tasks.
Future US Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States of America
The United States of America (USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US), or America, is a cou ...

justice Louis Brandeis
Louis Dembitz Brandeis (; November 13, 1856 – October 5, 1941) was an American lawyer and associate justice
Associate justice or associate judge is the title for a member of a judicial panel who is not the chief justice
The chief justic ...
coined the term ''scientific management'' in the course of his argument for the Eastern Rate Case before the Interstate Commerce Commission
The Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) was a regulatory agency in the United States created by the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887. The agency's original purpose was to regulate railroads (and later Trucking industry in the United States, trucking ...

in 1910. Brandeis argued that railroads, when governed according to Taylor's principles, did not need to raise rates to increase wages. Taylor used Brandeis's term in the title of his monograph '' The Principles of Scientific Management,'' published in 1911. The Eastern Rate Case propelled Taylor's ideas to the forefront of the management agenda. Taylor wrote to Brandeis, "I have rarely seen a new movement started with such great momentum as you have given this one." Taylor's approach is also often referred to as ''Taylor's Principles'', or, frequently disparagingly, as ''Taylorism''.
Managers and workers
Taylor had very precise ideas about how to introduce his system:
Workers were to be selected appropriately for each task.
Taylor believed in transferring control from workers to management. He set out to increase the distinction between mental (planning work) and manual labor (executing work). Detailed plans, specifying the job and how it was to be done, were to be formulated by management and communicated to the workers.
The introduction of his system was often resented by workers and provoked numerous strikes. The strike at Watertown Arsenal
The Watertown Arsenal was a major American arsenal
The Royal Armoury, Leeds
An arsenal is a place where arms and ammunition are made, maintained and repaired, stored, or issued, in any combination, whether privately or publicly ...
led to the congressional investigation in 1912.
Taylor believed the laborer was worthy of his hire, and pay was linked to productivity. His workers were able to earn substantially more than those under conventional management,[.] and this earned him enemies among the owners of factories where scientific management was not in use.
Rhetorical techniques
Taylor promised to reconcile labor and capital.
Scholarly debate about increased efficiency moving pig iron at Bethlehem's Iron and Steel
Debate about Taylor's Bethlehem study of workers, particularly the stereotypical laborer " Schmidt", continues to this day. One 2009 study supports assertions Taylor made about the quite substantial increase in productivity, for even the most basic task of picking up, carrying and dropping pigs of iron.
Management theory
Taylor thought that by analysing work, the "one best way" to do it would be found. He is most remembered for developing the stopwatch time study, which, combined with Frank Gilbreth
Frank Bunker Gilbreth (July 7, 1868 – June 14, 1924) was an American engineer, consultant, and author known as an early advocate of scientific management and a pioneer of time and motion study, and is perhaps best known as the father and cen ...
's motion study methods, later became the field of time and motion study
A time and motion study (or time-motion study) is a business
Business is the activity of making one's living or making money by producing or buying and selling Product (business), products (such as goods and services). Simply put, it is "any ac ...
. He broke a job into its component parts and measured each to the hundredth of a minute. One of his most famous studies involved shovels. He noticed that workers used the same shovel for all materials. He determined that the most effective load was 21½ pounds, and found or designed shovels that for each material would scoop up that amount. He was generally unsuccessful in getting his concepts applied, and was dismissed from . Nevertheless, Taylor was able to convince workers who used shovels and whose compensation was tied to how much they produced to adopt his advice about the optimum way to shovel by breaking the movements down into their component elements and recommending better ways to perform these movements. It was largely through his disciples' efforts (most notably Henry Gantt
Henry Laurence Gantt (; May 20, 1861 – November 23, 1919) was an American mechanical engineer
Mechanical may refer to:
Machine
* Mechanical system, a system that manages the power of forces and movements to accomplish a task
* Machine (mech ...

's) that industry came to implement his ideas. Moreover, the book he wrote after parting company with the Bethlehem company, ''Shop Management'', sold well.
Relations with ASME
Taylor's written works were designed for presentation to the (ASME). These include Notes on Belting (1894), A Piece-Rate System (1895), Shop Management (1903), Art of Cutting Metals (1906), and The Principles of Scientific Management (1911).
Taylor was president
President most commonly refers to:
*President (corporate title)
A president is a leader of an organization, company, community, club, trade union, university or other group. The relationship between a president and a Chief Executive Officer, chi ...
of the ASME from 1906 to 1907. While president, he tried to implement his system into the management of the ASME but met with much resistance. He was able to reorganize only the publications department and that only partially. He also forced out the ASME's longtime secretary, Morris Llewellyn Cooke
Morris Llewellyn Cooke (May 11, 1872 – March 5, 1960) was an American engineer
Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are Professional, professionals who Invention, invent, design, analyze, build and test Machine, machines, complex syste ...

, and replaced him with Calvin W. Rice. His tenure as president was trouble-ridden and marked the beginning of a period of internal dissension within the ASME during the Progressive Age.
In 1911, Taylor collected a number of his articles into a book-length manuscript, which he submitted to the ASME for publication. The ASME formed an ad hoc committee to review the text. The committee included Taylor allies such as James Mapes Dodge
James Mapes Dodge (Manhattan, June 30, 1852 - Germantown, Philadelphia, December 4, 1915) was an American mechanical engineer, inventor, industrialist and President of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in the year 1903-04. He is known as ...
and Henry R. Towne
Henry Robinson Towne (August 24, 1844 – October 15, 1924) was an American mechanical engineer
Mechanical may refer to:
Machine
* Mechanical system, a system that manages the power of forces and movements to accomplish a task
* Machine (mech ...
. The committee delegated the report to the editor of the ''American Machinist
The ''American Machinist'' is an American trade magazine of the international machinery industries and most especially their machining
truck of the US Army with machinists working on automotive parts
Machining is a process in which a material (of ...
'', . Alford was a critic of the Taylor system and his report was negative. The committee modified the report slightly, but accepted Alford's recommendation not to publish Taylor's book. Taylor angrily withdrew the book and published ''Principles'' without ASME approval. Taylor published the trade book himself in 1912.
Taylor's influence
United States
* helped Taylor to develop speed-and-feed-calculating slide rule
The slide rule is a mechanical . The slide rule is used primarily for and and for functions such as , , s, and . They are not designed for addition or subtraction which was usually performed manually, with used to keep track of the magnitude ...

s to a previously unknown level of usefulness. Similar aids are still used in machine shops today. Barth became an early consultant on scientific management and later taught at Harvard.
* H. L. Gantt developed the Gantt chart
A Gantt chart is a type of bar chart
A bar chart or bar graph is a chart or graph that presents categorical data with Rectangle, rectangular bars with heights or lengths proportional to the values that they represent. The bars can be plotted ve ...

, a visual aid for scheduling tasks and displaying the flow of work.
* introduced scientific management to the railroad
Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transferring passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are located on tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a prepared flat surface ...

industry, and proposed the dichotomy of ''staff'' versus ''line'' employees, with the former advising the latter.
* Morris Cooke adapted scientific management to educational and municipal organizations.
*Hugo Münsterberg
Hugo Münsterberg (; June 1, 1863 – December 16, 1916) was a German-American psychologist
A psychologist is a person who studies normal and abnormal mental states, perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and social processes and behavior by experim ...
created industrial psychology
Industrial and organizational psychology (I-O psychology) which is also known as occupational psychology, organizational psychology, or work and organizational psychology; is an applied discipline within psychology
Psychology is the scien ...
.
*Lillian Gilbreth
Lillian Evelyn Moller Gilbreth (May 24, 1878 – January 2, 1972) was an American psychologist, industrial engineer, consultant, and educator who was an early pioneer in applying psychology to time and motion study, time-and-motion studies. She wa ...

introduced psychology to management studies.
*Frank Gilbreth
Frank Bunker Gilbreth (July 7, 1868 – June 14, 1924) was an American engineer, consultant, and author known as an early advocate of scientific management and a pioneer of time and motion study, and is perhaps best known as the father and cen ...
(husband of Lillian) discovered scientific management while working in the construction industry, eventually developing motion studies independently of Taylor. These logically complemented Taylor's time studies, as time and motion are two sides of the efficiency improvement coin. The two fields eventually became time and motion study
A time and motion study (or time-motion study) is a business
Business is the activity of making one's living or making money by producing or buying and selling Product (business), products (such as goods and services). Simply put, it is "any ac ...
.
*Harvard University
Harvard University is a private
Private or privates may refer to:
Music
* "In Private
"In Private" was the third single in a row to be a charting success for United Kingdom, British singer Dusty Springfield, after an absence of nearly tw ...

, one of the first American universities to offer a graduate degree in business management in 1908, based its first-year curriculum on Taylor's scientific management.
* Harlow S. Person, as dean
Dean may refer to:
People
* Dean (given name)
* Dean (surname), a surname of Anglo-Saxon English origin
* Dean (South Korean singer), a stage name for singer Kwon Hyuk
* Dean Delannoit, a Belgian singer most known by the mononym Dean
Title
...
of Dartmouth's Amos Tuck School of Administration and Finance, promoted the teaching of scientific management.
* James O. McKinsey, professor of accounting at the University of Chicago
The University of Chicago (UChicago) is a private
Private or privates may refer to:
Music
* "In Private
"In Private" was the third single in a row to be a charting success for United Kingdom, British singer Dusty Springfield, after an abse ...
and founder of the consulting firm bearing his name, advocated budgets as a means of assuring accountability and of measuring performance.
France
In France
France (), officially the French Republic (french: link=no, République française), is a transcontinental country
This is a list of countries located on more than one continent
A continent is one of several large landmasses ...

, Le Chatelier translated Taylor's work and introduced scientific management throughout government owned plants during World War I
World War I, often abbreviated as WWI or WW1, also known as the First World War or the Great War, was a global war
A world war is "a war engaged in by all or most of the principal nations of the world". The term is usually reserved for ...

. This influenced the French theorist Henri Fayol
Henri Fayol (29 July 1841 – 19 November 1925) was a French mining engineer, mining executive, author and director of mines who developed a general theory of business administration that is often called Fayolism.Morgen Witzel (2003). ''Fifty key ...
, whose 1916 '' Administration Industrielle et Générale'' emphasized organizational structure in management. In the classic ''General and Industrial Management'', Fayol wrote that "Taylor's approach differs from the one we have outlined in that he examines the firm from the 'bottom up.' He starts with the most elemental units of activity – the workers' actions – then studies the effects of their actions on productivity, devises new methods for making them more efficient, and applies what he learns at lower levels to the hierarchy..." He suggests that Taylor has staff analysts and advisors working with individuals at lower levels of the organization to identify the ways to improve efficiency. According to Fayol, the approach results in a "negation of the principle of unity of command." Fayol criticized Taylor's functional management in this way: In ''Shop Management'', Taylor said[Fayol, 1949, p. 68] « ... the most marked outward characteristics of functional management lies in the fact that each workman, instead of coming in direct contact with the management at one point only, ... receives his daily orders and help from eight different bosses... these eight were (1) route clerks, (2) instruction card men, (3) cost and time clerks, (4) gang bosses, (5) speed bosses, (6) inspectors, (7) repair bosses, and the (8) shop disciplinarian. » Fayol said that this was an unworkable situation and that Taylor must have reconciled the differences in some way not described in Taylor's works.
Around 1922 the journalist Paulette Bernège became interested in Taylor's theories, which were popular in France in the post-war period.
Bernège became the faithful disciple of the Domestic Sciences Movement that Christine Frederick
Christine Frederick (February 6, 1883 – April 6, 1970) was an American home economist and early 20th century exponent of Taylorism as applied to the Separate spheres, domestic sphere. She conducted experiments aimed at improving household effic ...
had launched earlier in the United States, which Bernège adapted to French homes.
Frederick had transferred the concepts of Taylorism from the factory to domestic work. These included suitable tools, rational study of movements and timing of tasks. Scientific standards for housework were derived from scientific standards for workshops, intended to streamline the work of a housewife.
The ''Comité national de l'organisation française'' (CNOF) was founded in 1925 by a group of journalists and consulting engineers who saw Taylorism as a way to expand their client base.
Founders included prominent engineers such as Henry Louis Le Châtelier and Léon Guillet
Leon, Léon (French) or León (Spanish) may refer to:
Places
Europe
* León, Spain, capital city of the Province of León
* Province of León, Spain
* Kingdom of León, an independent state in the Iberian Peninsula from 910 to 1230 and again from ...
. Bernège's Institute of Housekeeping Organization participated in various congresses on the scientific organization of work that led up to the founding of the CNOF, and in 1929 led to a section in CNOF on domestic economy.
Great Britain
Older historical accounts used to suggest that British industry had less interest in Taylor's teachings than in similarly sized countries. More recent research has revealed that British engineers and managers were as interested as in other countries. This disparity was largely due to what historians have been analysing: recent research has revealed that Taylor's practices diffused to Britain more through consultancies, in particular the , than through institutions, as in Germany and to a lesser extent France, where a mixture was most effective.
Particularly enthusiastic were the Cadbury family
The Cadbury family is a prominent British family of Quaker industrialists descending from Richard Tapper Cadbury.
* Richard Tapper Cadbury (1768–1860) draper and abolitionist, who financed his sons' start-up business
**John Cadbury (1801–18 ...
, Seebohm Rowntree
Benjamin Seebohm Rowntree, CH (7 July 1871 – 7 October 1954) was an English sociological researcher, social reformer and industrialist
A business magnate is someone who has achieved great success and enormous wealth through the ownership ...
, Oliver Sheldon
Oliver Sheldon (1894–1951) was a director of the Rowntree Company in York, in the United Kingdom, UK. He wrote on principles of public and business administration in the 1920s.
Life
Oliver Sheldon was born on 13 July 1894. He was educated ...
and Lyndall Urwick
Lyndall Fownes Urwick (3 March 1891 – 5 December 1983) was a British management consultant and organizational theorist, business thinker. He is recognised for integrating the ideas of earlier theorists like Henri Fayol into a comprehensive the ...

. In addition to establishing a consultancy to implement Taylor's system, Urwick, Orr & Partners, Urwick was also a key historian of F.W. Taylor and scientific management, publishing ''The Making of Scientific Management'' trilogy in the 1940s and ''The Golden Book of Management'' in 1956.
Switzerland
In Switzerland, the American Edward Albert Filene established the International Management Institute to spread information about management techniques. Lyndall Urwick
Lyndall Fownes Urwick (3 March 1891 – 5 December 1983) was a British management consultant and organizational theorist, business thinker. He is recognised for integrating the ideas of earlier theorists like Henri Fayol into a comprehensive the ...

was its director until the IMI closed in 1933.[ Charles D. Wrege, Ronald G. Greenwood, and Sakae Hata, 'The International Management Institute and Political Opposition to its Efforts in Europe, 1925-1934' ''Business and Economic History'' (198]
PDF link
/ref>
USSR
In the Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a that spanned during its existence from 1922 to 1991. It was nominally a of multiple national ; in practice and were highly until its final years. The ...
, Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known by his alias Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government
The head of government is e ...

was very impressed by Taylorism, which he and other Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks (Russian
Russian refers to anything related to Russia, including:
*Russians (русские, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries
*Rossiyane (росс ...

leaders tried to incorporate into Soviet manufacturing. When Joseph Stalin
( – 5 March 1953) was a Georgians, Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who governed the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power both as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1922–1952 ...
took power in the 1920s, he championed the theory of "Socialism in one country#REDIRECT Socialism in one country
Socialism in one country ( rus, links=no, социали́зм в отде́льно взя́той стране́, r=sotsializm v otdelno vzyatoy strane, t=socialism in a single country) was a theory put forth by ...
" which denied that the Soviet economy needed foreign help to develop, and open advocates of Western management techniques fell into disfavor. No longer celebrated by Soviet leadership, Taylorism and the mass production methods of Henry Ford
Henry Ford (July 30, 1863 – April 7, 1947) was an American industrialist
A business magnate is someone who has achieved great success and enormous wealth through the ownership of multiple lines of enterprise. The term characteristicall ...

remained silent influences during the industrialization of the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, " ..Frederick Taylor's methods have never really taken root in the Soviet Union." The voluntaristic approach of Stalin's Stakhanovite
The term Stakhanovite (стахановец) originated in the Soviet Union and referred to Workforce, workers who modeled themselves after Alexey Stakhanov. These workers took pride in their ability to produce more than was required, by working har ...
movement in the 1930s, fixated on setting individual records, was intrinsically opposed to Taylor's systematic approach and proved to be counter-productive. The stop-and-go of the production process – workers having nothing to do at the beginning of a month and 'storming' during illegal extra shifts at the end of the month – which prevailed even in the 1980s had nothing to do with the successfully taylorized plants e.g., of Toyota
is a Japanese multinational
Multinational may refer to:
* Multinational corporation, a corporate organization operating in multiple countries
* Multinational force, a military body from multiple countries
* Multinational state, a sovereign st ...

which are characterized by ''continuous'' production processes (heijunka
Production leveling, also known as production smoothing or – by its Japanese original term – , is a technique for reducing the mura (unevenness) which in turn reduces muda (waste). It was vital to the development of production efficiency in th ...

) which are ''continuously'' improved (kaizen
, the Sino-Japanese word for "improvement", is a concept referring to business activities that continuously improve all functions and involve all employees from the CEO
A chief executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer, or just ch ...
).
"The easy availability of replacement labor, which allowed Taylor to choose only 'first-class men,' was an important condition for his system's success." The situation in the Soviet Union was very different. "Because work is so unrhythmic, the rational manager will hire more workers than he would need if supplies were even in order to have enough for storming. Because of the continuing labor shortage, managers are happy to pay needed workers more than the norm, either by issuing false job orders, assigning them to higher skill grades than they deserve on merit criteria, giving them 'loose' piece rates, or making what is supposed to be 'incentive' pay, premia for good work, effectively part of the normal wage. As Mary McAuley has suggested under these circumstances piece rates are not an incentive wage, but a way of justifying giving workers whatever they 'should' be getting, no matter what their pay is supposed to be according to the official norms."
Taylor and his theories are also referenced (and put to practice) in the 1921 dystopia
A dystopia (from Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek includes the forms of the used in and the from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: (), Dark Ages (), the period (), and the period ().
...
n novel '' We'' by Yevgeny Zamyatin
Yevgeny Ivanovich Zamyatin ( rus, Евге́ний Ива́нович Замя́тин, p=jɪvˈɡʲenʲɪj ɪˈvanəvʲɪtɕ zɐˈmʲætʲɪn; 20 January (Julian calendar, Julian) / 1 February (Gregorian calendar, Gregorian), 1884 – 10 March 1 ...
.
Canada
In the early 1920s, the Canadian textile industry was re-organized according to scientific management principles. In 1928, workers at Canada Cotton Ltd. in Hamilton, Ontario
Hamilton is a port city in the Canadian Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Ontario. Hamilton has a Canada 2016 Census, population of 536,917, and its Census Metropolitan Area, census metropolitan area, which includes Burlington, ...
went on strike against newly introduced Taylorist work methods. Also, Henry Gantt
Henry Laurence Gantt (; May 20, 1861 – November 23, 1919) was an American mechanical engineer
Mechanical may refer to:
Machine
* Mechanical system, a system that manages the power of forces and movements to accomplish a task
* Machine (mech ...

, who was a close associate of Taylor, re-organized the Canadian Pacific Railway
The Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) , known as CP Rail between 1968 and 1996 and simply Canadian Pacific, is a historic Canadian
Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be res ...
.
With the prevalence of US branch plants in Canada and close economic and cultural ties between the two countries, the sharing of business practices, including Taylorism, has been common.
The Taylor Society and its legacy
The Taylor Society
The Taylor Society was an American society for the discussion and promotion of scientific management, named after Frederick Winslow Taylor.
Originally named The Society to Promote The Science of Management, the Taylor Society was initiated in 1911 ...
was founded in 1912 by Taylor's allies to promote his values and influence.[http://samnational.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/SAMHistory1912-1987b.pdf] A decade after Taylor's death in 1915 the Taylor Society had 800 members, including many leading U.S. industrialists and managers.[Percy S. Brown, 'The Works and Aims of the Taylor Society' ''Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science'' (May, 1925]
online at JSTOR
/ref> In 1936 the Society merged with the Society of Industrial Engineers, forming the Society for Advancement of Management, which still exists today.
Criticism of Taylor
Many of the critiques of Taylor come from Marxists. The earliest was by Antonio Gramsci, an Italian Communist, in his ''Prison Notebooks'' (1937). Gramsci argued that Taylorism subordinates the workers to management. He also argued that the repetitive work produced by Taylorism might actually give rise to revolutionary thoughts in workers' minds.
Harry Braverman's work ''Labor and Monopoly Capital: The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century'', published in 1974, was critical of scientific management
Scientific management is a theory of management that Analysis, analyzes and wikt:synthesis#Noun, synthesizes workflows. Its main objective is improving economic efficiency, especially Workforce productivity, labor productivity. It was one of the ...
and of Taylor in particular. This work pioneered the field of Labor Process Theory as well as contributing to the historiography of the workplace.
Management theorist Henry Mintzberg is highly critical of Taylor's methods. Mintzberg states that an obsession with efficiency allows measurable benefits to overshadow less quantifiable social benefits completely, and social values get left behind.
Taylor's methods have also been challenged by socialism, socialists. Their arguments relate to progressive defanging of workers in the workplace and the subsequent degradation of work as management, powered by capital, uses Taylor's methods to render work repeatable and precise yet monotonous and skill-reducing. James W. Rinehart argued that Taylor's methods of transferring control over production from workers to management, and the division of labor into simple tasks, intensified the alienation of workers that had begun with the factory system of production around the period 1870 to 1890.
Criticism of Taylor and the Japanese model, according to Kōnosuke Matsushita:
"We are going to win and the industrial west is going to lose out; ... the reasons for failure are within yourselves. Your firms are built on the Taylor model. Even worse, so are your heads. With your bosses doing the thinking while workers wield the screwdrivers, you’re convinced deep down that it is the right way to run a business. For the essence of management is getting ideas out of the heads of the bosses and into the heads of labour. We are beyond your mindset. Business, we know, is now so complex and difficult, the survival of firms so hazardous in an environment increasingly unpredictable, competitive and fraught with danger, that their continued existence depends on the day-to-day mobilisation of every ounce of intelligence." (See https://vanguard-method.net/library/management-thinkers/konosuke-matsushita/)
Tennis and golf accomplishments
Taylor was an accomplished tennis and golf player. He and Clarence Clark won the inaugural United States National championship (tennis), United States National tennis doubles championship at Newport Casino in 1881, defeating Alexander Van Rensselaer and Arthur Newbold in straight sets.[ In the 1900 Summer Olympics, Taylor finished Golf at the 1900 Summer Olympics – Men's individual, fourth in golf.
]
Publications
Books:
* 1903, 1911.
Shop management, by Frederick Winslow Taylor ... with an introduction by Henry R. Towne ...
'. New York, London, Harper & Brothers.
* 1911. '' The Principles of Scientific Management''. New York and London, Harper & Brothers.
* 1911.
A treatise on concrete, plain and reinforced: materials, construction, and design of concrete and reinforced concrete
'. (2d ed). New York, J. Wiley & Sons.
* 1912.
Concrete costs
'. New York, J. Wiley & Sons.
Articles, a selection:
* 1894.
Notes on Belting
" ''Transactions of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers,'' Vol. XV, 1893, pp. 204–259.
* 1895.
A Piece-rate System
in: ''The adjustment of wages to efficiency; three papers ...''.
* 1903.
Shop management
" ''Transactions of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers'' 24: 1337-480
* 1906.
On the Art of Cutting Metals
" ''Transactions of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers,'' Vol. XXVIII, 1906, pp. 31–350.
References
Sources
*Atta, Don Van (1986), "Why Is There No Taylorism in the Soviet Union?" in: ''Comparative Politics'', Vol. 18, No. 3. (Apr. 1986), pp. 327–337
*Copley, Frank Barkley, ''Frederick W. Taylor, Father of Scientific Management'' (Harper and Brothers, 1923
2 vols. online at Archive.org
*Head, Simon (2005), ''The new ruthless economy. Work and power in the digital age'', Oxford University Press, Paperback Edition
*
*Epstein, Marc J
"Taylor, Frederick Winslow (1856-1915)."
In ''History of Accounting: An International Encyclopedia,'' edited by Michael Chatfield and Richard Vangermeersch. New York: Garland Publishing, 1996. pp. 579–580.
*Fayol, H. (1987). ''General and industrial management: Henri Fayol's classic revised by Irwin Gray.'' Belmont, CA: David S. Lake Publishers.
*
*
*
*David Montgomery (historian), Montgomery, David (1989), ''The Fall of the House of Labor: The Workplace, the State, and American Labor Activism, 1865-1925'', Cambridge University Press, Paperback edition
Further reading
*Aitken, Hugh (1960), ''Taylorism at Watertown Arsenal
The Watertown Arsenal was a major American arsenal
The Royal Armoury, Leeds
An arsenal is a place where arms and ammunition are made, maintained and repaired, stored, or issued, in any combination, whether privately or publicly ...
. Scientific management in action, 1908–1915'', Harvard UPCompara
*Braverman, Harry (1974) ''Labor and Monopoly Capital: The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century'' (Monthly Review Press, New York, 1974)
*
*Copley, Frank Barkley (1923) ''Frederick W. Taylor, Father of Scientific Management'' (Harper and Brothers, 1923
2 vols. online at Archive.org
*
*Kanigel, Robert (1997) ''The one best way: Frederick Winslow Taylor and the enigma of efficiency'' (London : Little, Brown)
*
*
*
Primary sources
*
*Taylor, Frederick, ''Scientific Management'' (includes "Shop Management" (1903), "The Principles of Scientific Management" (1911) and "Testimony Before the Special House Committee" (1912)), Routledge, 2003,
External links
*
*
Stevens Institute of Technology has an extensive collection at its library
{{DEFAULTSORT:Taylor, Frederick Winslow
American industrial engineers
American mechanical engineers
American steel industry businesspeople
1856 births
1915 deaths
American business theorists
American management consultants
Bethlehem Steel people
Motivational theories
Patternmakers (industrial)
Presidents of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers
Fellows of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers
Public administration scholars
Quality experts
Amateur golfers
American male golfers
American male tennis players
American people of English descent
Burials at West Laurel Hill Cemetery
Germantown Academy alumni
Golfers at the 1900 Summer Olympics
Golfers from Philadelphia
Grand Slam (tennis) champions in men's doubles
Deaths from pneumonia in Pennsylvania
Members of the American Philosophical Society
Olympic golfers of the United States
Phillips Exeter Academy alumni
Stevens Institute of Technology alumni
Tennis players from Philadelphia
Time and motion study
Tuck School of Business faculty
United States National champions (tennis)
19th-century male tennis players
19th-century American engineers
20th-century American engineers
19th-century American writers
20th-century American writers
19th-century American businesspeople