Frederick W. Taylor: The Father of Scientific Management : Myth and Reality [Hardcover]

Charles D. Wrege (Author), Ronald G. Greenwood (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1991

The reader will discover the beginning of modern manufacturing operations and learn how Taylor continues to influence today's manufacturing systems. Frederick W. Taylor shows the reader how to apply his theories and achieve manufacturing excellence.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

This is a very carefully researched look at Taylor, the much-misunderstood father of scientific management. Using primary source material, the authors present in a very readable manner a biography/history of both the man and his ideas. Similar to Daniel Nelson's Frederick W. Taylor and the Rise of Scientific Management (Univ. of Wisconsin Pr., 1980), this work shows both that Taylor's ideas have a place in the Information Age and that most of the negative ideas we have about scientific management are not grounded in what Taylor actually did. Even those libraries with Nelson's book will want to purchase this one. Recommended for all business collections.
- Michael D. Kathman, St. John's Univ., Collegeville, Minn.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Business One Irwin (June 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1556235011
• ISBN-13: 978-1556235016
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,212,693 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Cheaper by the dozens - a story of piece work, September 11, 2004

By 

Jack Vaughan (Boston, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Frederick W. Taylor: The Father of Scientific Management : Myth and Reality (Hardcover)

In "Frederick W. Taylor: The Father of Scientific Management - Myth and Reality" [1991] Taylor comes across as a son of the upper class, traipsing from one consultant engagement to another, stop watch in hand [or later on, stop watch somehow disguised so as not to upset the floor workers], a little humorous in his actions as he mucked about as something of an anthropologist going into the lost world of factories and loading docks.

I will always have a warm feeling for Taylor, who was played as a daft old clock-watcher with a ticker of gold by Clifton Webb in "Cheaper by the Dozen" -- that Saturday Night at the Movies perennial. The focus on the Frederick W. Taylor of Hollywood was different. It was on his home life, with a raft of children, and his attempts to bring Scientific Management to the home nest. The straightest path to job completion was his goal; the breakup of the job into streamlined tasks was his means. One recalls Webb deciding that the optimal way to button a man's vest was starting at the bottom and moving up. Brilliant!

Some of his critics pointed to Babbage and Coulomb as progenitors of time-study, but Taylor can place a fair claim on having invented it in 1881 as he studied the Mivale Steel Company lading process.

Was it really science? The evidence as I read it in this book by Charles D. Wrege and Ronald G Greenwood is that there was lot of pseudo science in Taylor's work, and a bit of fudging here and there. But he was on to something, and his followers, some of whom used that new invention, moving pictures, to break down and improve processes. Place Frank Gilbreth, author of "Cheaper by the Dozen," in this camp.

The book covers a lot of ground, but doesn't dig in much and analyze. For example, the Watertown Arsenal Strike of 1911, which was set off by workers less than enamored of piece work as promulgated by a Taylor protégé, is a pretty significant event, but it gets short shrift here. The book is really like a document, laying out the facts of Taylor's public life, and would thus be valuable to researchers, but the dust jacket promotion of the book as of value to the managers who would have interest in Drucker is not quite germane, in my opinion. The facts sometime seem to dispel some myth - but the work is that of an investigator who leaves it to the client to infer and conclude.