Throughout its history, man has been looking for the best way to organize his work. This was done out of a desire to get the most out of their activities, spending a minimum of effort. For this purpose, many methods of organizing labor have been developed, including production, but only some of them have become widespread. The Taylor system is one such technique. Its use, on the one hand, increases productivity in production, but, on the other hand, it also has significant disadvantages.
The essence of the Taylor system
The founder was Frederick Taylor, by whose surname the method itself was named. It was mainly concentrated on the organization of production processes and production labor itself, increasing the efficiency of workers and rationalization. Taylor developed several principles that should have been followed when working in his system:
- All production was divided into separate operations and their constituent elements.
- Management is an active component of the process.
- Its special function is planning.
- It is necessary to develop instruction cards for work.
- Submission of people to each other should take place in accordance with a strict hierarchy.
- Scientific validity of the norms and processes included in the production.
- The division of labor is also introduced in management.
- Wages stimulate the growth of the number of production.
As you can see, the theoretical part of the Taylor organization system looks quite promising. But in the process of its implementation, a large number of nuances can arise. Consider the advantages and disadvantages of the Taylor system in relation to the real production process.
Advantages
First of all, the system unified not only the production operations themselves, but also allocated a certain amount of time for each of them. This significantly increased the productivity of an individual worker performing an operation.
Improving organization, including at managerial levels, also contributed to streamlining the production process. Taylor’s management system made it possible to make the management of the same well-functioning system as any other type of activity.
The employee’s training period was also significantly reduced, since the division of labor processes was so strong that everyone was required to know only that part of the work that he himself was engaged in.
disadvantages
But of course, this approach could not have flaws. The first of them flowed directly from the mechanism of splitting the labor process into operations: over time, a person working on the Taylor system began to be inferior in universality to those who were engaged in different types of activities, and thus his value as a worker decreased.
Also, a strong attachment to reducing the time required to perform an operation leads to an increase in the stress on an individual, which does not contribute to improving the quality of his work.
It should be remembered that immediately at the beginning of the introduction, the Taylor system was criticized both by the trade unions and by the entrepreneurs themselves. A campaign was launched to counteract its implementation, as workers, not without good reason, believed that the system could contribute to their operation and require wear and tear.
Key myths about the Taylor system
Despite the fact that the system itself in its pure form is not currently used in production facilities and may more likely relate to classical schemes of labor organization, many still do not fully understand it. In this regard, a significant number of myths and conjectures have formed around Taylor himself and his brainchild.
However, most of them are disproved in the primary sources. In particular, there is an opinion that the system considers the employee as a soulless biorobot. However, the author of the method himself warned against such an approach, urging not to forget about the need to change the psychological approach to work for the worker himself. He also stated the need to provide the worker with the right to make adjustments to the production process if, in the opinion of the person performing the operation, corrections were needed.
The presence of such a number of myths and incorrect interpretations once again reminds us that when studying even theories considered to be classics, reading the primary sources is a necessity, protecting from a large number of errors.