F.W.Tylor is considered as the "Father of scientific management" and his contributions mark a new era in Modern Management Thought. The concepts propounded by him have an impact on management service practice as well as on management thought up to the present day.. Taylor formalized the principles of scientific management,and the fact-finding approach put forward and largely adopted was a replacement for what had been the old rule of thumb.

He also developed a theory of organizations , which has been largely accepted by subsequent Management Philosophers

By 1881 Taylor had published a paper that turned the cutting of metal into a science. Later he turned his attention to shoveling coal. By experimenting with different designs of shovel for use with different material (from 'rice' coal to ore) he was able to design shovels that would permit the worker to shovel for the whole day.

In so doing, he reduced the number of people shoveling at the Bethlehem Steel Works from 500 to 140. This work, and his studies on the handling of pig iron, greatly contributed to the analysis of work design and gave rise to method study.

To follow, in 1895, were papers on incentive schemes. A piece rate system on production management in shop management, and later, in 1909, he published the book for which he is best known, Principles of Scientific Management.

A feature of Taylor's work was stop-watch timing as the basis of observations. However, unlike the early activities of Perronet and others, he started to break the timings down into elements and it was he who coined the term 'time study'.

Taylor's uncompromising attitude in developing and installing his ideas caused him much criticism. Scientific method, he advocated, could be applied to all problems and applied just as much to managers as workers. In his own words he explained:

"The old fashioned dictator does not exist under Scientific Management. The man at the head of the business under Scientific Management is governed by rules and laws which have been developed through hundreds of experiments just as much as the workman is, and the standards developed are equitable."

The four objectives of management under scientific management were as follows:

• The development of a science for each element of a man's work to replace the old rule-of-thumb methods.

• The scientific selection, training and development of workers instead of allowing them to choose their own tasks and train themselves as best they could.

• The development of a spirit of hearty cooperation between workers and management to ensure that work would be carried out in accordance with scientifically devised procedures

• The division of work between workers and the management in almost equal shares, each group taking over the work for which it is best fitted instead of the former condition in which responsibility largely rested with the workers. Self-evident in this philosophy are organizations arranged in a hierarchy, systems of abstract rules and impersonal relationships between staff.

This required an organization theory similar for all practical purposes to that advocated by those organizational theorists who followed. These theorists developed principles of management which included much of Taylor's philosophy

His framework for organization was:

• clear delineation of authority

• responsibility

• separation of planning from operations

• incentive schemes for workers

• management by exception

• task specialization

Taylor's Philosophy though gained immense popularity, was also widely criticised on three grounds.

1. Scientific management ignored human side of organization.. Taylor viewed on average worker as a machine that could be motivated to work hard through economic incentives. Workers and Trade Unions opposed his views strongly on the plea that it was exploitative.

2. Taylor's theory is narrow in scope having direct application to factory jobs at the Shop Floor Level. Taylor and his disciples were called "Efficiency Experts" because they concentrated attention on improving efficiency of workers and machines. Scientific management is therefore restricted in scope as a theory of Industrial Engineering or Industrial Management, rather than a general theory of management.

3. Taylor advocated excessive use of specialisation and separation of planning from doing. Excessive division of labour had disastrous consequences in the form repetitive and monotonous jobs and discontent among workers.

Nevertheless, Taylor's theory and principles have exercised considerable influence on modern management thought. His emphasis on use of scientific methods in solving work-related problems is widely accepted by modern experts on management. Taylor's impact has been so great because he developed a concept of work-measurement, production control and other functions, that completely changed the nature of industry. Before scientific management, such departments as work-study, personnel, maintenance and quality control did not exist. What was more his methods proved to be very successful. Quantitative approach or management science approach is based largely on Taylor's philosophy.

"Scientific Management focuses on job-productivity at the shop floor, in particular upon techniques that could be used on manual workers. Scientific management principles continue to be widely applied today. In a typical manufacturing orgnization one will see scientific managment ideas and techniques being applied to the shop floor, and bureaucratic principles of organization being used in the office areas".^*

^*Andrzej A. Huczynski in "Management Gurus - What makes them and how to become one" (p.12)