Scientific management, also called Taylorism, was a theory of management
that analyzed
and synthesized workflows.
Its main objective was improving economic efficiency, especially labor productivity. It was one of the
earliest attempts to apply science to the engineering
of processes and to management. Its development
began with Frederick Winslow Taylor in the 1880s and
1890s within the manufacturing industries. Its peak of influence
came in the 1910s; by the 1920s, it was still influential but had begun an era
of competition
and syncretism
with opposing or complementary ideas. Although scientific management as a
distinct theory or school of thought was obsolete by the 1930s, most of its
themes are still important parts of industrial engineering and management
today. These include analysis; synthesis; logic; rationality;
empiricism;
work ethic;
efficiency and elimination of waste; standardization
of best
practices; disdain for tradition preserved merely for its own sake
or merely to protect the social status of particular workers with particular
skill sets; the transformation of craft
production into mass
production; and knowledge transfer between workers and from
workers into tools, processes, and documentation.
Scientific
management's application was contingent on a high level of managerial control
over employee work practices. This necessitated a higher ratio of managerial
workers to laborers than previous management methods. The great difficulty in
accurately differentiating any such intelligent, detail-oriented management
from mere misguided management also caused interpersonal friction between
workers and managers.