Scientific management

Scientific management is a field of study which was started by Frederick Winslow Taylor (1856-1915). In his honor, the domain is sometimes called Taylorism. Taylor believed he could improve work in a company and its management through scientific procedures. This would solve the social problems in the company and guarantee wealth for all people. Very important components are:

• Making a difference between planning work and its execution
• Studying how long a process step takes to get estimates for the time it should take
• Wages based on productivity
• Prescribing the daily workload

It was mainly used for manufacturing processes, where workers operated machines to get a product. Today, the main problems seen with this approach is that the workers were treated like machines and not like human beings. It is the division of labour pushed to its extreme.