TWO APPROCHES TO THE SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT

He felt that faster work could be assured only through:

1)enforced standardisation of methods

2)enforced adaptation of best instruments and working conditions

3)enforced co-operation

Scientific management as a process involves:

1) time-and-motion studies to decide a standard for working;

2) a wage-incentive system that was a modification of the piecework method already in existence;

3)changing the functional organisation.

Although he hasn't invented time-and-motion studies but did carry them out more thoroughly than predecessors.

Among the experiments he performed to prove his theory were:

1. Work study:

One experiment detailed movements of workers in a shop and suggested short cuts or more efficient ways of performing certain operations. Within three years the output of the shop had doubled.

2. Standardised tools for shops:

In another area he found that the coal shovels being used weighed from 16 to 38 pounds. After experimenting, it was found that 21-22 pounds was the best weight. Again, after three years 140 men were doing what had previously been done by between 400 and 600 men.

3. Selection and training of workers:

Taylor insisted that each worker be assigned to do what he was best suited for and that those who exceeded the defined work be paid "bonuses." Production, as might be expected, rose to an all-time high.

Taylor, as a result of these experiments, advocated assignment of supervisors by "function" - that is, one for training, one for discipline, etc. This functional approach is evident today in many organisations, including libraries.

Taylor took many of his concepts from the bureaucratic model developed by Max Weber, particularly in regard to rules and procedures for the conduct of work in organisations. Weber, the first to articulate a theory of authority structure in organisations, distinguished between power and authority, between compelling action and voluntary response. He identified three characteristics which aided authority:

1) charisma (personality)

2) tradition (custom)

3) bureaucracy (through rules and regulations)

The concept of bureaucracy developed about the same time as scientific management, and thoughts on specialisation of work, levels of authority, and control all emerged from Weber's writings. Weber was more concerned with the structure of the organisation in which people perform their work roles, rather than with the individual. Most of his writings and research related to the importance of specialisation in labour, regulations and procedures, and the advantages of a hierarchical system in making informed decisions.

Luther Gulick and Lyndal Urvick's Principals of Administration