We can easily see and verify the waste of material things. But the clumsy, inefficient, or misdirected movements of men leave nothing visible or tangible behind them… Frederick Winslow Taylor, "Principles of Scientific Management" Aside from the introduction.
This article outlines Taylor's principles of scientific management and provides a brief introduction to Fordism.
Principles of Taylorism
Frederick Winslow Taylor is considered one of the first thinkers of managerial administration. With his work "Principles of scientific administration", he takes the first steps in administrative thinking and today his legacy is considered fundamental and a mandatory reference for any manager since despite time, his views are highly topical.
Taylor's great contribution was to have proposed to develop a science of work and a Scientific Administration based on the following principles:
- Work Organization Selection and training of workers Cooperation and remuneration for individual performance Responsibility and specialization of managers in work planning.
1. Scientific Organization of Labor
This criterion refers to the activities that managers must use to replace inefficient work methods and avoid work simulation, taking into account. (times, delays, movements, responsible operations and tools.
2. Selection and training of the worker
The idea is to locate the appropriate personnel for their corresponding work according to their capacities, promoting an improvement in the worker's well-being.
When the work is analyzed methodically, the administration must specify the minimum work requirements for an efficient performance of the position, always choosing the most qualified personnel.
3. Cooperation between managers and operators
The idea is that the interests of the worker are the same as those of the employer, to achieve this a remuneration for efficiency or per unit of product is proposed, in such a way that the worker who produces more, earns more and avoids the simulation of work.
Taylor proposes several mechanisms to achieve such cooperation:
- Remuneration per work unit: A structure of bosses or (foremen) who due to their greater knowledge can coordinate the work of the company and can collaborate and instruct their subordinates. For Taylor, there had to be several tasks for the different functional heads: Head of scheduling, time and cost, material allocation maintenance, quality control production instructions, work development and personnel relations. between managers and operators:
4. Responsibility and specialization of managers in work planning
Managers take responsibility for planning, mental work, and manual labor operators, generating a more accentuated division of labor and greater efficiency.
Through the following video, by Educatina, you will be able to appreciate Taylor's main contributions to administrative thinking.
Fordism
Given Taylor's principles, we will talk a bit about what Fordism was: Fordism can be considered as a stage of modern capitalism that spans from the 1940s to the 1970s, the so-called golden age of capitalism, characterized by the existence of large-scale production companies, with Taylorist production methods, a high division of labor and the growth of consumer credit.
Ford Model T Assembly Line - Photo: The Henry Ford
Fordist production methods were first applied at the Ford Motor Company in Detroit in 1913 under the leadership of Henry Ford, and quickly spread to other industries.
The definition in the strict sense of Fordism has been expanded to include a series of aspects that allowed capitalism to have a stable behavior during this stage; These standards not only deal with the organization of production processes (especially the organization of the labor factor), but also analyze production objectives and methods to resolve labor disputes.
The Fordist method of production involves the combination of Taylorism with the increasing mechanization of large companies with many production lines, associated with the application of the assembly line, the uniform selection of components and final products.
Taylorism, based on the principle of 'scientific management' developed by Frederick Winslow Taylor, can be considered as the rationalization of production processes by differentiating the tasks of creation and execution, or what is the same, by dividing the organization from the production (managers, engineers, among others) of mechanical tasks, ensuring greater control of production by managers. Thus, the mental aspects are completely separated from manual tasks. This constituted a complete break with the production methods of the past, when production was organized according to the type of craftsmanship and craftsmen created, organized and completed manual tasks.
Taylorism is therefore the basis of many of the current production processes and represents one of the first steps in what we now call Management Administration.
The following video explains the foundations of scientific management, from the beginning of the 20th century, and the implementation of Taylor's concepts by Ford in the production of its Model T.
