Fw Taylor - Bio Timeline - 010611 (1)

BIOGRAPHICAL TIMELINE OF FREDERICK WINSLOW TAYLOR(from various uncited Internet resources, primarily books and papers on www.archive.org)

Age

Year

Profession

Company

NotesTaylor family moved from England to America in late 1600's. Samuel Taylor settled from England to the Quaker province of West Jersey in 1677. Mother's side of the family had relatives that came to America on the Mayflower and landed in Salem Massachusettes in 1629 (Winslows)...Edward Winslow was 1 of the 15 original Mayflower Pilgrims that brought servants or children, and 1 of 8 that had the honorable distinction of Mister. He served for many years as the Governor of the Plymouth colony. Taylor's father is a lawyer and one of the richest men in Philadelphia. Taylor's uncle Caleb is president of a bank and a congressman. Frederick Taylor was an aristocrat and extremely wealthy. American civil war lasts from 1861 - 1865.

Additional Notes

13

1869

Student

Schools in France and Germany

The two years of school in France and Germany, and then a year and a half of travel in Italy, Switzerland, Norway, England, France, Germany, Austria, etc.

16

1872

Student

Exeter Academy

Family returns to Phildelphia, Pennsylvania from Europe. Taylor starts at Phillips Exeter Academy in NH. Led class scholastically. Plan was to go to Harvard and then law school (to be a lawyer like his Father). Exeter is a prep school for Harvard, like Andover is for Yale.

17

1873

Student

Exeter Academy

Passed June 1874 Harvard entrance exams with Honors (1869 exam included Latin translation, Latin grammar, Greek grammar, Greek composition, History & Geography, Arithmetic, Logarithms and Trigonometry, Algebra, and In the USA, from 1873 1879, 18,000 businesses went bankrupt, including hundreds of banks, and ten states went bankrupt, while unemployment peaked at 14% in 1876 Plane Geometry).

18

1874

Apprentice Mold Patternmaker

Enterprise Hydraulic Works

EYE PROBLEM, supposedly the reason for not attending Harvard. Instead of studying at Harvard, Taylor takes a mold patternmaker apprenticeship at a Pump Mfg Co in Philadelphia, also sometimes known as Ferrell & Jones. The patternmaker, the highly skilled worker who made the wooden patterns that produced hollows in hard-pressed sand to mold molten metal, producing iron and brass castings. Precision metal working is the high tech industry of this generation. The company owners were friends of Taylor's family. Many accounts say that his eyes recoverd quickly, but he stayed at the apprenticeship for 4 more years. That he persisted with his apprenticeship despite the early restoration of his eyesight. Note that apprenticeships were the normal way to train for a job (there were no written training or work instructions). You learned through on the job experience, and word of mouth.

1874: Economic depression in USA, recovery starts in 1878 (late industrial revolution). Unemployment went as high as 14% (UK and Western Europe affected until 1896). The sectors which experienced the most severe declines in output were manufacturing, co Wages drop drastically and this causes labor unrest and strikes. 1878 USA recovery begins. The mileage of railroad track laid down in the USA increased from 2,665 mi (4,289 km) in 1878 to 11,568 in 1882. Construction began recovery by 1879; the value of build half times between 1878 and 1883, and unemployment fell to 2.5% in spite of high immigration. Railroads require steel and much construction did as well.

19

1876

Machine Tool Salesman

Enterprise Hydraulic Works

In 1876, his cousin persuades Taylor to be a trade show booth sitter for a group of New England machine tool manufacturers at Philadelphia s Centennial Exposition (100th anniversary of USA, capital is Philadelphia). There are many foreign visitors to the Expo and Taylor knows German and French (in addition to Greek and Latin). Machine tools for cutting metals were made of tool steel at the time (versus high speed tool steel 25 years later). Again, precision metal working is the high tech industry of this generation.

21

1877

Apprentice Machinist

Enterprise Hydraulic Works

After that, he returned to the pump works and served a second apprenticeship, this time as a machinist. 6 months away from apprenticeship.

22

1878

Machine shop laborer Time clerk Journeyman Machinist Gang Boss over the Lathe Hands F oreman of the Machine Shop

Midvale Steel

Economic recovery in the USA begins (late industrial revoolution). Midvale was an advanced steel manufacturer. They installed the first chemisty lab in a steel factory. Owned by Edward Clark and William Sellers (Sellers also has a machine tool company, Clark is the money man)). Sellers is a well respected Mechanical Engineer with many patents. Taylor begins at Midvale as a Machine Shop Laborer (strange for an skilled aristocrat). Learns shop floor labor methods and techniques at Midvale (Philadelphia). Observes soldiering or laziness on a mass scale. Observes machines running a low utilization. Solidering / laziness is the first key focus (he first focuses on increasing labor productivity). Wages are paid per output, by unit of output (piece-rate, or piece-work system)...or day rate for general labor. Piece rates were a wage incentive system to try and give individuals incentives rather than treat them as an entire group / gang. A FIXED price was set per piece of output, paid to the worker (Taylor would change this in 1903's Shop Management). Piece rate systems had been a failure before Taylor, as most companies would reduce their piece rates, paying less for the same output to control and reduce wages. All ASME papers on wage systems at the time didn't know the expected output for a worker and therfore had a critical flaw. Taylor has a Ridiculous rise in positions due to family connections and friends (Midvale owned by Clark and Sellers. Clark's son Clarence is also an Midvale manager, and partner with Taylor on 1st US Open tennis doubles champions in 1881. Clarence Clark marries Taylor's sister. Taylor said to US Congress that his EYES HEALED in 1878, 4 years later than many say is true. It was the wrong side of the Exeter training, however, which ruined my eyes and left me no alternative than working as a workman for the four years following 1874. Did he really have an eye problem? Taylor said himself to Congress that when he started as a laborer at Midvale, that is when his eyes healed. Was Taylor hired as an industrial spy for Clark Senior, and didn't threaten the workers, as he had a supposed eye problem.? Quick rise through the ranks is definitely due to family and personal relationships with the Midvale owners (Clark and Sellers).

In the nineteenth century, Philadelphia was the nation's most intensely industrialized city, with numerous small-sized and medium-sized enterprises in the textile, chemical, and metal industries. Leading metal-sector firms included the Baldwin Locomotive Works, and Midvale Steel, noted for its production of armor-plate, the experiments of management guru Frederick Taylor and its employment of African American workers. Midvale emerged after 1873, when Edward Clark and William Sellers began to transform the co largest steel works. The son of a prominent city banker, Clark and his family were the wealthiest residents of Germantown, a genteel suburban community northwest of the city center. Since founding his own firm in 1847, Sellers had pioneered a number of innov thread for machine screws and bolts. By the 1870s he was possibly the country's leading figure in machine tools, the heavy-duty lathes, planers, boring machines, and other metal-cutting machines that constituted the guts of modern industry. Sellers had also att young men of socially prominent families, forming a "fraternity of mechanicians" that served as a model and prototype for professional mechanical engineering. In 1875 Midvale secured a challenging order for naval guns and began the transformation that woul pioneering maker of steel for large guns and heavy armor. At the time, kerosene torches still lighted Midvale's "dark and dilapidated" factory, located at the southern edge of Germantown in a district grandly called Nicetown. Midvale, with 400 workers, had a sma making steel; separate hammer, rolling and machine shops for forming steel; and the needed blacksmith and pattern shops for design and engineering work. Soon, guns up to six inches in diameter left its shops, for battleships and cruisers in the United States' ne that Congress hoped would transform the nation into a world power. For close to a decade, Midvale was the nation's preeminent military contractor, until Bethlehem Steel in the mid-1880s and then also Carnegie Steel entered this supremely lucrative market.(Another prominent member of the Philadelphia industrial scene, Josep responsible for reforming Bethlehem in these years.) While rails sold for around $40 a ton, the Navy paid $400 a ton or more for top-grade armor. Mastering the special alloys and heat treatments needed to make hardened armor also made these three firms tech Midvale hired a new machine-shop subforeman. In many ways he fit into Seller's "fraternity of mechanicians," for he had a flair for inventing machinery. An in-law of Edward Clark, and soon Clark's son-in-law and his son's award-winning doubles tennis partner, he Philadelphia Quaker family, just a mile from the Nicetown factory. His name was Frederick Taylor, the father of "scientific management," and in time his fame would far outdistance any of the Philadelphia social elite. During World War I a flood of military orders its Nicetown plant workforce to 11,500, including 4,000 African Americans, most of whom were part of the ongoing "Great Migration" from the American South. Despites its merger with three other medium-sized Pennsylvania iron and steel firms in southeastern Coatesville, and Eddystone - Midvale Steel and Ordnance could not keep pace with the larger Pittsburgh mills after the war had ended. Instead of competing for tonnage orders, Midvale converted its Nicetown plant to specialty steel production. After powerhous purchased the other three plants, Midvale's Nicetown plant shrank to just 1,800 workers by 1928 (for the rest of the 20th century, steel in Pennsylvania would no longer be a Philadelphia story (Pittsburgh took over as the steel city)).

25

1881

Maintenance Foreman Head of the Drawing Office (F oreman of the Machine Shop)

Midvale Steel

Keep in mind that after 6 months at Midvale, Taylor was a foreman. Taylor was not an IE (IE didn't exist yet). Taylor was a manufacturing manager. 1881, ends 3 years of workers fighting Taylor at Midvale, until they supposedly gave up and promised to do a fair days work. At this point, Taylor says he had doubled their output. Taylor later says to Congress that they were fighting over what a proper day's work was. Taylor said the workers knew 10 times more than them, and management didn't know. what a proper day's work was. Workers had all of the power. Taylor is a Foreman and wants more output. No set theory or plan. Taylor sought to learn the content of the workers' skill. He wanted to formulate rules, laws, even formulae to help calculate the optimal output of labor work. Taylor is motivated by Charles Babbage's - Economy of machinery and Manufacture, where Babbage list the tables used in France in the 1700's showing the time required to do a series of operations in pin manufacturing. These tables show no study of the motions of the worker, or how much work should be expected. The costing of new products (time, not materials) was based on the Foreman's guess or estimates from past products. This was the same process used in setting piece rates. In 1881, at 25, Taylor introduced time study at the Midvale plant. This transferred skill from the men to management . Taylor timed the work and also analyzed for improvement (which often highlighted issues with methods, tools, layout, etc). Friends thought yes this would reduce disputes with labor, but it was wasting a lot of time and effort, collecting data on the smallest motions of work. The profession of time study was founded on the success of this project, which also formed the basis of Taylor's subsequent theories of management science. Essentially, Taylor suggested that production efficiency in a shop or factory could be greatly enhanced by close observation of the individual worker and elimination of waste time and motion in his operation. Though the Taylor system provoked resentment and opposition from labour when carried to extremes, its value in rationalizing production was indisputable and its impact on the development of mass-production techniques immense. Taylor separates Thinking from Doing. Managers think and workers do what they're told. Taylor finds his work studing the labor work (accurate motion and time study of men) and studying the machine work (study of the art of cutting metals). So, he experiments with materials and machines . In the 1880s all art of cutting metals was left to the judgment of the workmen and foremen, they had no set rules or procedures. Taylor wants to answer every mechanic's questions: what is the proper angle for machine tools, what was the proper clearance angle, and what were the proper back and side slopes? First metal cutting discoveries. Taylor wins US Open tennis doubles with Clarence Clark...happy day at Midvale Steel.

27

1883

Head of the Drawing Office (F oreman of the Machine Shop)

Midvale Steel

Midvale hires Emlen Hare Miller, the first person ever to have time study as his full-time profession, a new scientific occupation. Taylor continues ridiculous amounts of metal cutting experiments, over 49,000. It takes him 14 years to realize that the most important factor in metal cutting is the speed of the tool. Machine tool manufacturers at the time were ignorant of the speed at which their tools should be run). Years later, Taylor highlights to the Tool Builders Association annual convention that 95% of metal cutting machines were not properly speeded...no one could argue with him. 1883 Taylor gets ME degree - Stevens Institute. Home study. Taylor has many patents (Steel hammer, etc.) More than 40 patents in his lifetime.

1884

Chief Engineer (F oreman of the Machine Shop)

Midvale Steel

Took 6 years to become Chief Engineer of the steel factory (maintained Machine Shop Foreman). 1884, hires George Sinclair to look at the data and create formulae for proper metal cutting settings and resulting cutting time., cannot do it (too complex, more than 4 variables), but moderate successes. But, Carl Barth at Midvale takes this and makes a slide rule for clauclateing lathe speeds and feeds. Taylor builds new machine shop (30 machines, basically stable product mix just making locomotive tires and car axles). Gets opportunity to start fresh and implement his improvements / newly forming system. Invents pouring water on machine tools to cool them. Belting experiments reduced machine delays due to belt issues (provide power to machines). Expereiments to determine proper feed rate for materials, and speed. Tool holder and setup reduction table inventions. Taylor attacks the universal difficulty of rewarding workers equitably according to their accomplishment, as they had no proper time standards. Wage incentives closely related to time standards. Define basic work elements, and then all work is a combination of these elements. Experiments to determine standard times. Sets up a pseudo-laboratory. Had problems controlling outide environment / factors, so he standardize the work so he can control the process and get a proper time and work method. Standardization meant getting the right materials and the right tools in the right condition to the right man with the right instructions at the right time. All cause for delay must be avoided. Flow of work must be continuous. All of the work in the shop needed to be carefully planned in advance (this was new). Introduces the concept of detailed written work instructions (versus the current word of mouth training processes). First he pays workmen higher wages to follow his standard methods resulting from the experiments. Workmen that don't make standards get paid less. Higher output, lower labor cost, and higher wages. Workers might not make standards because of machine failures, waiting for instructions, or a slipping belt. Unavoidable delays. Adds allowances. Management supplies tools, instead of workmen owning their own tools. Organized tools: a place for everything, and everything in its place, and also proper variety, condition, and and sufficient quantity. Provides detailed work instructions and checklists for work in other parts of the factory, including maintenance. Still not much progress with speeding up of machines. Organization building / adopting the system becomes the key problem (people issues). 1886 Taylor joins ASME (American Society of Mechanical Engineers)...organization is 6 years old.

Within this timeframe he developed the Towne-Halsey plan. According to F.W. Taylor and mentioned in his book Shop Management "it consists in recording the quickest time in which a job has been done, and fixing this as a standard. If the workman succeeds in doing the job in his same wages per hour for the time he works on the job, and in addition is given a premium for having worked faster, consisting of from one-quarter to one-half the difference between the wages earned and the wages originally paid when the job was done in standard time."

31

1887

Chief Engineer (F oreman of the Machine Shop)

Midvale Steel

1887, Sinclair is replaced by Henry L. Gantt (26 yrs old). After 1 year, Gantt creates the standard tables for setting up the metal cutting machines. Prior to Taylor, foremen made little attempt to train or teach workers. Little supervision, they were left to work by themselves (unless the process had a problem or was really difficult or important). They were fired if they didn't meet the foreman's undocumented expectations. Foreman are expected to do everything. Taylor's system adds assistants for various functions, and these later become functional departments...one man for making instruction cards, one man for time study, one man for planning..he further and further breaks up the foreman's responsibilities into a new functional type of organization versus military type. This expands to cost accounting, inventory, product design, scheduling of work, engineering, inspection, discipline, etc. Buraeaucratic org with lorts of record keeping. Separates planning from execution.. General manager should direct policy and the ability of the men underneath him. Creates differential piece rate system. Applies extra pay for extra work to day rate labor also. He varied day rate labor wages based on punctuality, attendance, integrity, rapidity, skill and accuracy, with wages readjusted periodically based on their record. Taylor doesn't want to persuade or reason with the workmen to follow his methods, he wants to MAKE them do it. Rest of time spent at Midvale is developing Shop Management (later Scientific Management, after the Eastern Rate Case in 1910.

In 1886, Henry R. Towne (VP of the ASME) writes a paper called The Engineer as an Economist, in which he pleads with the ASME for the recognition and the organization of "the Science of Management." Key point was that managers in factories should be trained as enginee developing, and Towne wanted people to share their knowledge and experiments with each other, via ASME. Up until 1895 (when Taylor's A Piece Rate System is published), only 4 papers on the subject had been presented; Towne had presented 1 of them. In order, Capital's (Partridge), A Problem in Profit Sharing (Kent), Gain Sharing (Towne), and The Premium Plan of Paying for Labor (Halsey 1891). Halsey wanted to correct the evils of the 3 current wage systems at the time; piece rates, day rates, and profit sharing...profit sharing was like day ra interest / motivation of the worker...extra work led to extra profits, which were shared equally by all workers..which just discouraged the better workers. Halsey proposes to give the workmen a premium (higher rate of pay) for more work than had been done traditionally...but that would be given mostly to management (2/3 of the gain). To get more efficient, companies at the time would just increase expected output from the workers...which led to big labor problems. Taylor's A Piece Rate Systems, in 1895, joins Towne's gain-sharing plan with Halsey's patents, Beginning with 1886, there was scarcely a year when one or more patents were not issued to him in connection either with his professional work or with his purely personal activities such as devising improved implements for tennis, golf, gardening, hothouses, and moving trees. However, his general experience with patents was such that he came to regard them as useful for little else besides that of pegs marking stages in the march of progress.

33

1889

Chief Engineer (F oreman of the Machine Shop)

Midvale Steel

Marries Louise Spooner. Famous steam hammer invention (previous designs would break apart and Taylor's design introduced elasticity). Taylor leaves Midvale on good terms. Ownership had changed a few years earlier to Harrah, from Sellers and Clark. Taylor always spent a lot of money, and they challenged this repeatedly, which upset Taylor.

34

1890

General Manager

Manufacturing Investment Company

3 year contract. Position acquired after US military inspectors on-site at Midvale for a contract, suggested him to the Secretary of the Navy , William C. Whitney. Whitney was President of the Manufacturing Investment Company. From 1890 until 1893 Taylor worked as a general manager and a consulting engineer to management for the Manufacturing Investment Company of Philadelphia, a company that operated large paper mills in Maine and Wisconsin. He spent time as a plant manager in Maine (Taylor used to vacation in Maine). Taylor moved from Midvale to serve as a consultant to many manufacturing firms particularly in the metal trades and with his disciples and competitors formed the scientific management movement. More patents. Joins ASME. In 1891, Taylor builds a house in Appleton, Wisconsin 1 mile from the pulp and paper mill, as there was only 1 hotel in the town. Taylor was unhappy at MIC, as the owners were not scientifically trained and they didn't realize the value of his contribution (similar to what happened at the end of his time at Midvale when ownership changed to Harrah). His superioss (like Midvale) questioned the savings from his expenses...like the complete alternate power plant at the Wisconsin mill....the expenses were clear, but the benefits unclear...he didn't do a good job of documenting and explaining the money savings from his projects. The mills did well, but the economic recession made MIC not very profitable (another reason for Taylor to quit after his contract ended). Financiers, and their lack of pride in manufacturing, caused him to never work again under th control of a company.

37

1893

Consulting Engineer

Independent Consulting Practice

1893, Taylor sees the need for creating a new profession; the consulting engineer in management. He offers his services not as a manager, but to systematize and organize a business, paid on a very high daily or weekly rate (he also continues mechanical engineering work at the same time). 2-3 month contracts, instead of 3 years at MIC. If people don't want to listen to him, then with a short contract he can just leave. He demanded full authority to make changes, and he accepted full responsibility for the results (good or bad). He practices this profession for the next 8 years (until 1901 when he pseudo-retires). Working with many different manufacturing companies gives Taylor the experience to refine and organize his methods / system. In 1893, Taylor opened an independent consulting practice in Philadelphia. His business card read "Consulting Engineer - Systematizing Shop Management and Manufacturing Costs a Specialty". His first customer was Simonds Rolling Machine Company - a manufacturer of steel balls for bicycle bearings (they had earlier acquired the rights to some of Taylor's patents).

38

1894

Consulting Engineer

Independent Consulting Practice

In 1894, Taylor publishes NOTES ON BELTING (15 pages) in ASME Transactions of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers [ ASME ] 28th Meeting, New York ,1893. Paper focuses on how to get most economical use of belts for machine power. This was taylor's first published paper and public presentation. Unrelated to his management system. He writes in a style directed at the "Tired Business Man." He speaks simply so that people can understand, and doesn't desire to use technical terms that would confuse readers.

39

1895

Consulting Engineer

Independent Consulting Practice

A PIECE-RATE SYSTEM - A Step Toward Partial Solution of the Labor Problem paper published ASME transactions. This is the first statement of Taylor's management methods. All of the papers that Taylor writes on his management system (3 in total) are designed for presentation to ASME. In this paper, he doesn't talk about functional management, as it is too c ontroversial. With Taylor's differential piece rate system, there are various rates for workmen: (1) ordinary piece rate which is ppaid for ordinal/normal output, and (2) a higher piece rate paid to workmen if he turns out more than the ordinary output, (3) a lower piece rate paid if output is lower than expected. Taylor expected workers to make 1/3 higher wages..higher price to workers paid per piece (via properly set standard times). If you don't make the expected output per day, then you get paid a lower piece rate. An even lower piece rate is paid if defective units were made. This is the differential rate system. This differential piece rate is new. In 1895 he began to publish papers on schemes to increase worker incentive. Higher wages, and lower labor cost (because you get more output to cover the increased wages). Taylor never made use of this system outside of Midvale Steel. Extra pay for extra work was his motto.

The first statement of Taylor's system. Focused on labor; increasing labor productivity. 3 key points of the his piece rate system: (1) creating a rate-fixing department, (2) differential rate system of piece work, and (3) paying men and not positions. The LABOR PR to receive the largest possible wages for their time, coupled with management's desire to receive the largest possible return for the wages they pay. Rate fixing was done through scientific study, instead of guesswork as had been done in the past. "Men will not work, for an ordinary day's pay." Taylor mentions very little about standardization of general conditions. The paper is 23 pages long. At this time, Taylor envisions books for the various trades that have all possible motions and their according times (through pro similar to pre-determined motion time systems like MTM, MOST and MODAPTS. His version is shown in the 2 books he co-authored with Sanford E. Thompson (a protegy); Concrete Plain and Reinforced (1905) and Concrete Costs (1912).

42

1898

Consulting Engineer

Bethlehem Steel

Bethlehem Steel. (Bethlehem, PA is 110km from Philadelphia, PA). He charges $40/day ($40 in 1914 - 15 years later - is $876 in 2011). Unclear if this is 7 days/week. In 1898, Taylor joined Bethlehem Steel, in order to solve an output problem (forge shop output was much greater than machine shop capacity...if they built another machine shop to meet with forge capacity, it would have cost $1 million in 1898). A little perspective on Bethlehem Steel...in 1880 few, other than the mass-producers, employed more than 2,000 workers. Bethlehem Iron, at 2,600, was amongst the largest US companies. Remember also that steel mill machine shops were Taylor's expertise (from ~ 14 years at Midvale). Taylor introduces his "method of bookkeeping" to Bethlehem Steel...this becomes the cost accounting field (whereas only financial accounting had existed prior)....measures efficiencies (actual costs compared to expected standard costs).

Principal clients, in order that Taylor worked with them (before working at Bethlehem Steel): Simonds Rolling Machine Company with plant at Fitchburg, Massachusetts (shortly after starting work at Simonds, the general manager and all foremen quit, due to th control of manufacturing, as part of his contract), the William Cramp & Sons Ship and Engine Building Company, of Philadelphia (commonly known as Cramp's shipyards) ; the Northern Electrical Manufacturing Company of Madison, Wisconsin, and the Johnson C Company, two allied concerns having mills at Johnstown, Pennsylvania, Lorain, Ohio, and Cleveland, Ohio. In the case of all these companies, Taylor's engagements with them largely overlapped. Still another concern for which he did some important work in this p & Company, of Chicago, manufacturers of agricultural machinery, whose plant later became one of those of the International Harvester Company. At this time his method was to consider the accounting end first j he readily convinced the directors that a new acc

43

1899

Consulting Engineer

Bethlehem Steel

To increase machine shop capacity, Taylor and Maunsel White, and a team of assistants developed high speed steel. High speed steel increased machine shop capacity by 500%, and then the forge shop needed extra capacity.In 1899, he developed (with Maunsel White) the Taylor-White process for heat-treating high-speed tool steels, which increased cutting capacities up to 300 percent. Also, Taylor solves metal cutting formulae problem from back at Midvale 16 years earlier (leads to art of cutting metals paper / book). Schmidt and the pig iron handling- If workers were moving 12 1/2 tons of pig iron per day and they could be incentivized to try to move 47 1/2 tons per day, left to their own wits they probably would become exhausted after a few hours and fail to reach their goal. However, by first conducting experiments to determine the amount of resting that was necessary, the worker's manager could determine the optimal timing of lifting and resting so that the worker could move the 47 1/2 tons per day without tiring. Not all workers were physically capable of moving 47 1/2 tons per day; perhaps only 1/8 of the pig iron handlers were capable of doing so. While these 1/8 were not extraordinary people who were highly prized by society, their physical capabilities were well-suited to moving pig iron. This example suggests that workers should be selected according to how well they are suited for a particular job.. Shoveling experiments - In another study of the "science of shoveling", Taylor ran time studies to determine that the optimal weight that a worker should lift in a shovel was 21 pounds. Since there is a wide range of densities of materials, the shovel should be sized so that it would hold 21 pounds of the substance being shoveled. The firm provided the workers with optimal shovels. The result was a three to four fold increase in productivity and workers were rewarded with pay increases. Prior to scientific management, workers used their own shovels and rarely had the optimal one for the job. Reveals high speed steel for the first time at Paris Exposition of 1900, and was awarded the Elliott Cresson Medal that same year by the Franklin Institute, Philadelphia. High speed steel machine tools become standard in every machine shop around the world...which opens the door for mass production worldwide. Imagine his enormous profits (which added to an pre-existing fortune). High speed tool steel is Taylor's greatest mechanical invention.

44

1900

Consulting Engineer

Bethlehem Steel

45

1901

Consulting Engineer

Bethlehem Steel

Taylor was forced to leave Bethlehem Steel in 1901 after antagonisms with other managers. Taylor nominally retired in 1901, but over the next decade he brought legions of industrialists and other acolytes to his estate outside Philadelphia for long, nonstop perorations about his system.

47

1903

Self-employed Serves the Public without Pay

Self-employed

Focuses on promoting his methods. SHOP MANAGEMENT paper published ASME Transactions. June 1903 presents Shop Mgmt to 350 mechanical engineers in Saratoga, New York. This essay would stand as his most complete statement of scientific management. Martha Banta called the Saratoga essay, "one of the key documents shaping modern industrialization." The success of this essay propelled Taylor to the presidency of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in 1906. In this paper, Taylor expands on the need for scientific work study from A Piece Rate System, and includes new management innovations such as functional departments (gang boss, speed boss, repair boss, and inspector), work instruction cards, Foreman are expected to do everything (too much). Taylor retired at 45 but continued to devote time and money to promote the principles of scientific management through lectures at universities and professional societies Read Taylor's papers and books for free at www.archive.org. Also, search for related papers written by other authors to get more insight / more perspectives. In order to determine proper standard times, Taylor had to control the work. This led him to standardizing methods, tools, and conditions. Also, to control the work, Taylor creates the Planning department, removing the thinking from the doing of work. The Planning dept developed into individual functional departments. That organizational style is what is standard today.

The Principles of Scientific Management by Frederick W. Taylor began as the text of a fireside lecture and evolved into a classic work of the Scientific Management Era. Taylor failed to convince his colleagues in the American Society of Mechani Principles in the ASME Transactions, in spite of an extensive letter writing campaign directed toward the effort. He resorted to a private printing of the material that had been rejected by the ASME. Taylor personally distributed copies of the Society before the publication of each of the forthcoming magazine articles and the trade edition of essentially the same material. Personal correspondence preserved in the Taylor Collection at Stevens Institute of Technology provides clues wherein Taylor labored over the manner of publication of his Principles of Scientific Management. Before Taylor, it was almost universally believed that the number of thinkers (or brain-workers) should be as small as possible, compared to th

50

1906

Self-employed Serves the Public without Pay

Self-employed

ART OF CUTTING METALSpublished in ASME Transactions, and also as a trade book. Taylor was 25th president of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) from 1906 to 1907 (VP in 1904 and 1905). At the time, ASME was 26 years old. 1906, Taylor was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Science by the University of Pennsylvania (in his home area of Philadelphia/Germantown). He and Sanford E. Thompson were joint authors of, "Concrete Plain and Reinforced ," which was published in 1906

Summary: Accurate metal cutting could no longer be achieved by relying on the individual and haphazard skills of the operator, but rather by the management who could measure all the variables and provide the optimum environment and tools for an efficient f maximum levels. Taylor himself conducted between 30-50,000 recorded experiments, using almost 800,000 pounds of iron and steel; over 8 years he made some startling discoveries, mostly relating to the shape of lathe tools, the use of water as a lubricant, optim optimums, tabulation of results, &c., &c. In this way it became practicable for a workman to use Taylor's formulas and laws; new tools were discovered made from chromium-tungsten, and the development of high-speed steel, called the Taylor-White process, wa important one, saving the machine industry of the USA hundreds of millions of dollars each year. It more than doubled the speed of metal-cutting machinery (see Dictionary of Scientific Biography, volume 13, p.272). This practical result suddenly opened the way areas in the factory - as Taylor himself said: "the art of cutting metals and the proper use of machine tools is but one of the small elements, namely the great opportunity, as well as the duty, which lies before us as engineers of taking such steps as will, during the very material increase of output of every man and every machine in their manufacturing establishments. It is possible to double the output of men and machines just as they stand now." (-p.11). Henri Le Chatelier said of the present work: "the near future will sho been rendered to the mechanical arts by this generous publication of researches pursued with such uncommon preseverance. But even now we can admire without reserve the scientific method which has controlled this whole work. It is an example unique in the arts. It is a model which every young engineer will have to study."

52

1908

Self-employed Serves the Public without Pay

Self-employed

Also, Harvard University, one of the first American universities to offer a graduate degree in business management in 1908, based its first-year curriculum on Taylor's scientific management.

In 1907, ASME first recognizes the field of management engineering.

53

1909

Self-employed Serves the Public without Pay

Self-employed

Starts lecturing at Harvard (until 1914). DODGE & DAY, Taylor writes to a friend and says, "I have found that any improvement of any kind is not only opposed, but aggressively and bitterly opposed, by the majority of men, and the reformer must usually tread a thorny path." Also, he says "I am inclined to go faster in any direction of reform than is in many cases wise." Taylor is not a good people manager and change agent. IEs today typically make the same mistakes.

54

1910

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Eastern Rate Case. This case not only coined the term scientific management, but made it a household word. In 1910, the railroad companies in the northeastern USA file new freight tariffs with the government's Interstate Commerce Commission (a significant increase in freight rates). The railroads claimed that recent large increases in worker wages caused the need to increase their profits. The shippers fought against the railroads. In July 1910, the ICC started an inquiry into this proposed freight tariff increase, and then in Sept, Oct, and Nov, they held hearings (11 experts testified). Louis Brandeis (ICC, and later supreme court justice) led this fight against the railroad tariff increases. These experts (led by FW Taylor) testified that there was a definite way that railroads could increase wages, and at the same time, reduce their costs. The way was called Scientific Management (modified the Shop Management term). They coined the term so that all experts would use the same terminology (which hadn't existed prior). One of the witnesses, Harrington Emerson, stated that in this way the railroads could save a million dollars per day. Other witnesses, plant managers, swore that Scientific Management had reduced their costs, while increasing their men's wages 25 to 100 percent. This term Scientific Management, and saving a million dollars a day in 1910, caused a sensation which was grasped by editors and reporters. By December, the newspapers were filled with the testimonies of the experts in this case. The whole country learned about this new Scientific Management. But at the same time, the railroads published articles that defended against the idea that they were inefficiently managed. Dartmouth College holds a conference to promote the merits of scientific management, and at the same time, organized labor pushes the House of Representatives to investigate whether Congress should forbid the system in the government service (this actually led to Congress banning stopwatch time study on government work from 1915 - 1948). Taylor credited Brandeis with the successful promotion of the system. "I have rarely seen a new movement started with such great momentum as you have given this one," Taylor wrote to Brandeis. PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT paper presented to ASME. In 1910, Taylor collected a number of his articles into a book-length manuscript which he submitted to the ASME for publication. The ASME formed an ad hoc committee to review the text. The committee included Taylor allies such as James Mapes Dodge and Henry R. Towne. The committee delegated the report to the editor of the American Machinist, Leon P. Alford. Alford was a critic of the Taylor system and the report was negative. The committee modified the report slightly, but accepted Alford's recommendation not to publish Taylor's book. Taylor angrily withdrew the book and published Principles without ASME approval... AMSE rejected the proposed trade book

Eastern Rate Case. Then, in 1910, in a case heard before the Interstate Commerce Commission, attorney (and future Supreme Court justice) Louis Brandeis made Taylor a household name. Certain powerful railroads had petitioned the ICC for a rate hike. They did What they needed instead, he said, was a dose of scientific management, Frederick Winslow Taylor s system of science-bred industrial efficiency. Overnight, Taylor was transformed into a celebrity, the man whose genius would save the railroads a million dollars grabbed the headlines. Now, suddenly, efficiency was all, boundless prosperity its certain consequence. During World War I, Taylor s methods and ideas were embraced by the combatant nations. In the 1920s, they swept through the factories and offices, kitche hospitals of half the globe.

Under Taylor's management system, factories are managed through scientific methods rather than by use of the empirical "rule of thumb" so widely prevalent in the days of the late nineteenth century when F. W. Taylor devised his system and published "Scientific Management" in 1911. The main elements of the Scientific Management are [1] : "Time studies Functional or specialized supervision Standardization of tools and implements Standardization of work methods Separate Planning function Management by exception principle The use of "slide-rules and similar time-saving devices" Instruction cards for workmen Task allocation and large bonus for successful performance The use of the 'differential rate' Mnemonic systems for classifying products and implements A routing system A modern costing system etc. etc. " Taylor called these elements "merely the elements or details of the mechanisms of management" He saw them as extensions of the four principles of management.[2] 1. The development of a true science 2. The scientific selection of the workman 3. The scientific education and development of the workman 4. Intimate and friendly cooperation between the management and the men. Taylor's scientific management consisted of four principles: First. They develop a science for each element of a man's work, which replaces the old rule-of.-thumb method. Second. They scientifically select and then train, teach, and develop the workman, whereas in the past he chose his own work and trained himself as best he could. Third. They heartily cooperate with the men so as to insure all of the work being done in accordance with the principles of the science which has been developed. Fourth. There is an almost equal division of the work and the responsibility between the management and the workmen. The management take over all work for which they are better fitted than the workmen, while in the past almost all of the work and the greater part of the responsibility were thrown upon the men.

55

1911

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In Jan 1911, Taylor lets "The American Magazine" publish a pamphlet version of Principles of Scientific Management (3 separate issues, preceded by an issue with Taylor's biography). Prior to scientific management, work was performed by skilled craftsmen who lengthy apprenticeships. They made their own decisions about how their job was to be performed. Scientific management took away much of this autonomy and converted skilled crafts into a series of simplified jobs that could be performed by unskilled workers for the tasks. Criticisms of time study parts (foundation of Taylor's system) include adding percentage of time to cover unavoidable delays is unscientific, manager bias during setting of R rating, takes power and skill away from labor, inhumane to treat workers li

56

1912

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PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT published as trade book on his own. During one of Taylor's own implementations, a strike at theWatertown Arsenal led to an investigation of Taylor's methods by a U.S. House of Representatives committee, which reported in 1912. The conclusion was that scientific management did provide some useful techniques and offered valuable organisational suggestions, but it gave production managers a dangerously high level of uncontrolled power. After an attitude survey of the workers revealed a high level of resentment and hostility towards scientific management, the Senate banned Taylor's methods at the arsenal. The Commission on Industrial Relations (also known as the Walsh Commission) was a commission created by the U.S. Congress on August 23, 1912. The commission studied work conditions throughout the industrial United States between 1913 and 1915. Meanwhile, in 1912, organized labor had Taylor hauled before a House Committee to Investigate the Taylor and Other Systems of Shop Management, where he endured a four-day inquisition. This cruel man s system, said his enemies in labor, made for just another brutal speed-up; workers had to toil harder and faster than ever, and any extra pay was apt to be short-lived. But labor s hostility went deeper than that. In a Taylorized factory, you worked not just harder and faster but by someone else s lights, not your own. Step-by-step, minute-by-minute instructions the time the job ought to take, just how you were to do it, in what order, with what tools came from on high. Your duty was to execute them, like a machine; the word robot had not yet been coined. In the dark imaginings of Taylor s ost hostile critics and often in practice, too human work was being stripped of much of what made it rewarding. Taylor s experts and engineers did the thinking, while you were consigned to mindless doing. This year, Taylor publishes SHOP MANAGEMENT as a trade book.

59

1915

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NAVAL APPROPRIATIONS BILL. anti-stop-watch clause enforced by the US government, containing that no part of a United States government appropriation could be used to provide funds for the purpose of timing an employee of the United States government by means of a stop watch. Significantly, the push to develop such an approach was a result of the implementation of the so-called anti-stop watch clause in the USA between 1915 and 1949 which began with the banning of Taylorist principles of work study from Government arsenals in 1915 and subsequent bans in Naval and Army Appropriations legislation 1917: no part of any appropriations made in this act ........ shall be available for the salary or pay of any officer, manager, Superintendent, foreman, or any other person having charge of the work of any employee of the United States Government while making or causing to be made with a stop-watch or other time measuring device a time study of any job of any such employee between the starting and completion thereof or of the movements of any such employee while engaged upon such work...

Interest in golf initiated the well known grass experiments at Boxly, the Taylor home in Chestnut Hill, Pennsylvania. The object of the experiments was to make a putting green which would not be entirely dependent on natural rainfall but would tap the reserves o of the soil. This fascinating story is detailed in a series of articles, "The Making of a Putting Green," published in Country Life in America in 1915. Death - Pneumonia