Innovations & Impact of Frederick W. Taylor

Daniel Nelson, in Frederick W. Taylor and the Rise of Scientific Management, explores and analyzes the techniques and innovations initiated by Taylor (1856-1915) and the impact he and they had on the transformation of American industry, with specific reference to the factory system, industrialization, productivity, management and labor. Nelson's aim is both to portray Taylor's contributions to the development of scientific management, and to show that Taylor was not the "developer of ruthless, dehumanizing, and simple-minded techniques to exploit industrial workers" (book jacket) that he is often described as being. The author aims to show that, to the contrary, he was an integral part of his era, trying at all times to streamline a system which made him as much as he made it.

The problem with Nelson's book is that it does not make the entire argument the author sets out to make. We certainly come away from this book deeply aware of Taylor's important and revolutionary contributions to the development of modern industry and management. However, it is undeniable that, whatever Taylor's intentions, he helped develop a realm which exploited workers and benefitted the rich elite of which he was a part. Taylor may not have been a ruthless man himself, but the industry he helped develop was ruthless in its mistreatment of the worker. Nelson is trying to manipulate the thought of the reader when he argues that we should measure Taylor's contributions only on the basis of "the essen

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es led him to side with management. Also, many of his contributions certainly aided the work of the laborer: In the 1880s, . . . the majority of his inventions pertained to the operation of metal-cutting machines. They included a tool grinder, a machine tool table, a chuck, a tool-feeding device for lathes, a work carrier for lathes, a boring-bar puppet, and two boring and turning mills (37). Beyond the practical advances these mechanical innovations brought, they also led in a sense to scientific management: "Taylor, the consummate engineer, soon discovered that technical advance demanded organizational innovations of comparable significance" (37). Despite his unsupported argument that Taylor was more of a friend to the worker than other writers have claimed, Nelson himself writes that "Taylor adopted the authoritarian style characteristic of late-nineteenth-century executives" (39). Taylor's incentive wage program, says Nelson "would ultimately make him the most famous---and controversial---engineer of his time" (39). Again, this incentive approach is in use in sweatshops still today. Nelson writes that "despite widespread resentment of his fining system, most Midvale workers respected him and his work" (39). The question is

Category: Business - I