
Emerson contended the railroads might save $1,000,000 a day by paying greater attention to efficiency of operation. Emerson did not meet Taylor until December 1900, and the two never worked together.Įmerson's testimony in late 1910 to the Interstate Commerce Commission brought the movement to national attention and instigated serious opposition.

Brandeis then used the consensus of "SCIENTIFIC management" when he argued before the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) that a proposed increase in railroad rates was unnecessary despite an increase in labor costs he alleged scientific management would overcome railroad inefficiencies (The ICC ruled against the rate increase, but also dismissed as insufficiently substantiated that concept the railroads were necessarily inefficient.) Taylor recognized the nationally known term "scientific management" as another good name for the concept, and adopted it in the title of his influential 1911 monograph. Brandeis had sought a consensus term for the approach with the help of practitioners like Henry L.

However, "scientific management" came to national attention in 1910 when crusading attorney Louis Brandeis (then not yet Supreme Court justice) popularized the term. Taylor's own names for his approach initially included "shop management" and "process management". 10 Variations of scientific management after Taylorism.5 Productivity, automation, and unemployment.These include: analysis synthesis logic rationality empiricism work ethic efficiency through elimination of wasteful activities (as in muda, muri and mura) standardization of best practices disdain for tradition preserved merely for its own sake or 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.

Although Taylor died in 1915, by the 1920s scientific management was still influential but had entered into competition and syncretism with opposing or complementary ideas.Īlthough 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. Taylor began the theory's development in the United States during the 1880s and 1890s within manufacturing industries, especially steel. Scientific management is sometimes known as Taylorism after its pioneer, Frederick Winslow Taylor. It was one of the earliest attempts to apply science to the engineering of processes to management.

Its main objective is improving economic efficiency, especially labor productivity. Scientific management is a theory of management that analyzes and synthesizes workflows. Frederick Taylor (1856–1915), leading proponent of scientific management
