momo: Frederick Winslow Taylor

Frederick Winslow Taylor

Frederick Winslow Taylor is a controversial figure in management history. His innovations in industrial engineering, particularly in time and motion studies, paid off in dramatic improvements in productivity. At the same time, he has been credited with destroying the soul of work, of dehumanizing factories, making men into automatons. What is Taylor's real legacy? I'm not sure that management historians will ever agree. But the following article is quite interesting, and Taylor's keystone book, The Principles of Scientific Management. In 1911, Frederick Winslow Taylor published his work, The Principles of Scientific Management, in which he described how the application of the scientific method to the management of workers greatly could improve productivity. Taylor argued that even the most basic, mindless tasks could be planned in a way that dramatically would increase productivity, and that scientific management of the work was more effective than the "initiative and incentive" method of motivating workers. The initiative and incentive method offered an incentive to increase productivity but placed the responsibility on the worker to figure out how to do it.

Taylor's 4 Principles of Scientific Management

1. Replace rule-of-thumb work methods with methods based on a scientific study of the tasks.

2. Scientifically select, train, and develop each worker rather than passively leaving them to train themselves.

3. Cooperate with the workers to ensure that the scientifically developed methods are being followed.

4. Divide work nearly equally between managers and workers, so that the managers apply scientific management principles to planning the work and the workers actually perform the tasks.

These principles were implemented in many factories, often increasing productivity by a factor of three or more. Henry Ford applied Taylor's principles in his automobile factories, and families even began to perform their household tasks based on the results of time and motion studies.

the meaning of terms

Problem

It is an obstacle which makes it difficult to achieve a desired goal, objective or purpose. It refers to a situation, condition, or issue that is yet unresolved. In a broad sense, a problem exists when an individual becomes aware of a significant difference between what actually is and what is desired. Every problem asks for an answer or solution.

In business and engineering, a problem is a difference between actual conditions and those that are required or desired. Often, the causes of a problem are not known, in which case root cause analysis is employed to find the causes and identify corrective actions.

n society, a problem can refer to particular social issues, which if solved would yield social benefits, such as increased harmony or productivity, and conversely diminished hostility and disruption.

Method

A method basically is a procedure, technique, or way of doing a particular thing in accordance with a definite plan. It can be defined as a plan or procedure followed to accomplish a task or attain a goal. Moreover, it can be defined as Means or manner of procedure, especially a regular and systematic way of accomplishing something .Orderly arrangement of parts or steps to accomplish an end .Also, the procedures and techniques characteristic of a particular discipline or field of knowledge. Method is a technique of acting in which the actor recalls emotions and reactions from past experience and uses them in identifying with and individualizing the character being portrayed.

Methodology

Methodology can be defined:
A body of practices, procedures, and rules used by those who work in a discipline or engage in an inquiry; a set of working methods:
The study or theoretical analysis of such working methods.
The branch of logic that deals with the general principles of the formation of knowledge.
Methodology can properly refer to the theoretical analysis of the methods appropriate to a field of study or to the body of methods and principles particular to a branch of knowledge.

Theory

· Set of statements or principles devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena, especially one that has been repeatedly tested or is widely accepted and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena.

· it is the branch of a science or art consisting of its explanatory statements, accepted principles, and methods of analysis, as opposed to practice

· it is a set of theorems that constitute a systematic view of a branch of mathematics.

· It is A belief or principle that guides action or assists comprehension or judgment

· It is An assumption based on limited information or knowledge.

Hypothesis

A hypothesis means an assumption. It is an uncertain explanation of an observation. Such kind of tentative explanation or an assumption is usually made at the early stages of the investigative process, guiding the investigator in his quest for searching for supporting data. The hypothesis is then declared as right or wrong depending upon the well-researched findings of the study.
A hypothesis is an educated guess at why something happens or how it happens that is unconfirmed by testing or evidence. Using your hypothosis, you would then conduct experiments until your hypothosis is proven true or false, or at least to the point that you can formulate a working theory that you and others can continue to explore.

paradigm

A set or list of all the inflectional forms of a word or of one of its grammatical categories .paradigm in the general sense, a pattern or model in which some quality or relation is illustrated in its purest form; but in the terminology of structuralism, a set of linguistic or other units that can be substituted for each other in the same position within a sequence or structure. A paradigm in this sense may be constituted by all words sharing the same grammatical function, since the substitution of one for another does not disturb the syntax of a sentence. Linguists often refer to the paradigmatic dimension of language as the ‘vertical axis’ of selection, whereas the syntagmatic dimension governing the combination of linguistic units is the ‘horizontal axis’ (see syntagm). Thus any sign has two kinds of relation to other signs: a paradigmatic relation to signs of the same class (which are absent in any given utterance), and a syntagmatic relation to signs present in the same sequence.

Strategy

· Strategy is the bridge between policy or high-order goals on the one hand and tactics or concrete actions on the other. Strategy and tactics together straddle the gap between ends and means. In short, strategy is a term that refers to a complex web of thoughts, ideas, insights, experiences, goals, expertise, memories, perceptions, and expectations that provides general guidance for specific actions in pursuit of particular ends

· The concept of strategy has been borrowed from the military and adapted for use in business. A review of what noted writers about business strategy have to say suggests that adopting the concept was easy because the adaptation required has been modest. In business, as in the military, strategy bridges the gap between policy and tactics. Together, strategy and tactics bridge the gap between ends and means. This paper reviews various definitions of strategy for the purpose of clarifying the concept and placing it in context. The author's aim is to make the concepts of policy, strategy, tactics, ends, and means more useful to those who concern themselves with these matters..

Plan

It is A program or policy stipulating a service or benefit
It is A method for making, doing, or accomplishing something
It is A method used in dealing with something
It is an Organized sequence of predetermined actions management has chosen to complete future organizational objectives. Planning is one of the primary responsibilities of organizational managers.

Control

Authority or ability to manage or direct.
the right and power to command, decide, rule, or judge
The act of exercising controlling power or the condition of being so controlled

Model

A model is a pattern, plan, representation, or description designed to show the structure or workings of an object, system, or concept. And also it is a study of a miniature of the actual
A small object, usually built to scale, that represents in detail another, often larger object.
A preliminary work or construction that serves as a plan from which a final product is to be made
Such a work or construction used in testing or perfecting a final product: a test model of a solar-powered vehicle.
A schematic description of a system, theory, or phenomenon that accounts for its known or inferred properties and may be used for further study of its characteristics

snowball effect

· it is a figurative term for a process that starts from an initial state of small significance and builds upon itself, becoming larger (graver, more serious), and perhaps potentially dangerous or disastrous (a vicious circle, a "spiral of decline"), though it might be beneficial instead (a virtuous circle).

A method of efficient debt repayment where the debt holder initially uses funds devoted for debt repayment toward paying the minimum payment of all other debts. After which, any remaining funds from the debt repayment budget are spent on an additional payment to the debt bearing the highest interest rate. Once the highest interest-bearing debt is completely paid for, the subsequent debt repayments go toward the next highest interest bearing debt until all the debts are paid off

Validitation or validity.

According to ISO 9000:2000 valitation is defined as "Confirmation, through the provision of objective evidence, that the requirements for a specific intended use or application have been fulfilled".
The quality or state of being valid; strength; force; especially, power to convince; justness; soundness
validation is the process of checking if something satisfies a certain criterion
Validation can mean to declare or make legally valid or to prove valid or confirm the validity of data, information, or processes:

Significance

· In statistics, a description of an observed result that shows sufficient deviation from the expected or hypothesized result to be considered different from the expected result and not attributable to chance.

· mathematics) A prescribed decimal place which determines the amount of rounding off to be done; this is usually based upon the degree of accuracy in measurement. Also known as significant digit.

· Significance is a stock issue in policy debate which establishes the importance of the harms in the status quo. As a stock issue has fallen out of favor with the debate community almost all debaters and judges now believe that any plan which is preferable to the status quo is significant.

Realibility

In general, reliability is the ability of a person or system to perform and maintain its functions in routine circumstances, as well as hostile or unexpected circumstances.
The probability that a product or process will perform satisfactorily over a period of time under specified operating conditions.
in research, the reproducibility of an experimental result; the extent to which an experiment, test, or measuring procedure yields the same result during independent, repeated trials.
the ability of two or more observers to examine the same data and arrive at a similar judgment within predefined bounds concerning the quality of care.

Relevance

Relevance is a term used to describe how pertinent, connected, or applicable some information is to a given matter. It has unique significance in a variety of fields.
Item that is capable of making a difference in decision making

Event

It is something that takes place; an occurrence, a significant occurrence or happening or a social gathering or activity.
In probability theory, an event is a set of outcomes (a subset of the sample space) to which a probability is assigned. Typically, when the sample space is finite, any subset of the sample space is an event (i.e. all elements of the power set of the sample space are defined as events). However, this approach does not work well in cases where the sample space is infinite, most notably when the outcome is a real-valued random variable. So, when defining a probability space it is possible, and often necessary, to exclude certain subsets of the sample space from being events

Process

A series of actions, changes, or functions bringing about a result
A series of operations performed in the making or treatment of a product
Sequence or arterial network of logically related and time-based work activities to provide a specific output for an internal or external customer
An action taken in the course of conducting business. Whether manual or automated, all processes require input and generate output. Depending on the level of viewing and modeling, a process can be a single task or a complicated procedure such as building a product.

Life cycle

The course of developmental changes through which an organism passes from its inception as a fertilized zygote to the mature state in which another zygote may be produced.
The course of events that brings a new product into existence and follows its growth into a mature product and into eventual critical mass and decline
Period of time during which a positive reaction to advertising is noticeable. An advertisement or an advertising campaign is said to have a life cycle that begins with the introduction of the advertising and ends when the advertising is worn out and no longer elicits a positive response.

Iterative

an iterative method attempts to solve a problem (for example an equation or system of equations) by finding successive approximations to the solution starting from an initial guess
Process for arriving at a progressively 'better' decision or a desired result by repeating the rounds of analysis or the cycles of operations. The objective is to bring the desired decision or result closer to discovery with each repetition (iteration). The iterative process can be used where the decision is not easily irrevocable (such as a marriage or war) or where the consequences of revocation could be costly. While a high number of iterations is desirable, it is usually constrained by the limited availability of time, energy, other resources, and presence of other pressures.

Sequential

data are analyzed as they become available so that the experiment or survey can be terminated as soon as the required result is available at the desired rate of statistical significance.

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Frederick Winslow Taylor

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