The Principles of Scientific Management

Frederick Winslow Taylor is where the serious student of scientific management begins. His classic, the Principles of Scientific Management, remains one of the best books on the subject more than a century after he penned it. The book, which started out as an academic paper, is funny at times (and probably not meant to be), written in the academic style of the early 20th century. Taylor's movements back and forth between the theory and real life examples prove that he was one of the better economists of his day. Taylor had humble beginnings (he was a shop laborer early in his career), and later he switched to consulting for various types of manufacturers. Peter F. Drucker and other scientific management gurus owe Taylor a debt of gratitude. How can a firm reach greater efficiencies? Taylor suggested that firms do it in ways that even today are resisted and misunderstood by management. Increase workers' pay. Give them mandatory breaks throughout the day. Timing rest breaks between heavy lifting optimizes productivity. Please don't ignore these examples in the information age - Taylor was ahead of his time and perhaps even ahead of ours. Today's intelligent manager can still discover many useful ideas in this book. It's not a terribly long work, and it's fun to read. This book is invaluable for firms and workers in any country, developed or undeveloped, and the firms that dare to utilize the ideas will be quite happy with the result: increased productivity, and therefore, increased profits.

For more than 80 years, this influential work by Frederick Winslow Taylor—the pioneer of scientific management studies—has inspired administrators and students of managerial techniques to adopt productivity-increasing procedures. Indeed, this book laid the groundwork for modern organization and decision theory.
As an engineer for a steel company, Taylor made careful experiments to determine the best way of performing each operation and the amount of time it required, analyzing the materials, tools, and work sequence, and establishing a clear division of labor between management and workers. His experiments resulted in the formulation of the principles expounded in this remarkable essay, first published in 1911.
Taylor advocated a scientific management system that develops leaders by organizing workers for efficient cooperation, rather than curtailing inefficiency by searching for exceptional leaders someone else has trained. The whole system rests upon a foundation of clearly defined laws and rules. Moreover, the fundamental principles of scientific management apply to all kinds of human activities, from the simplest individual acts to the most elaborate cooperative efforts of mighty corporations. Correct application of these principles, according to Taylor, will yield truly astonishing results.
Unabridged Dover (1998) republication of the work published by Harper & Brothers Publishers, New York, 1911.