Blend of Old and Contemporary Scientific Management

Scientific management itself is a profoundly self explanatory term to imbibe the principles of science into the arena of management. Isnt it a perfect blend which did revolutionized the manufacturing practices long ago and which can left an indelible imprint over the strategies and functionalities of the management world. This was a radical change in the history of manufacturing and management. Taylorism and inherent concepts The core concepts were to fragment a line of tasks into smaller modules and considering labor as raw materials of workforce for production. There was a division of labor tasks to increase productivity and enhance efficiency. Taylor described the process by scientifically modulating the task into smaller parts for catering to the best developmental fashion of production. Training and coaching should be provided prior to the production practices so as to enhance efficiency in work and faster production practices. Henry Ford introduced a new innovation into the field of manufacturing by transporting the modules and the production units to the employees to fasten up the process of production and hence to create history in the manufacturing process. Ford was highly inspired by the ideologies of Taylor to break up the tasks and hence he added onto his concepts and tremendously amazing idea of assembly lining. Legacy of Call Centers The jobs at call centers have been highly influenced by the concepts and framework of Taylorism defined years and years ago. Jobs in these ares are fragmented and decentralized to lower levels of management and operation. Operators are assigned individual atomic jobs to receive phone calls or take charge of outbound calls. Moreover sometimes, task fragmentation is also undertaken in the fields of credit cards, loans, product selling, ticket sales etc. Practice of Taylorism till date is widely exemplified by the practices followed in organizations like call centers and is a startling proof of long lasting legacy of the mode and philosophy of Taylor. There is a separation of mental and manual employees to optimize their work and refine the planning and production skills. Call centers are clear reflection of Taylorism concepts. An unprecedented level of control was leveraged with the use of highly well defined scripts used in aid of computer tasks to ensure compliance. They have high supervision and monitoring tasks. As described by Taylor, prepared and well defined scripts were given for reference which removed process of thinking from process of doing. The task of thinking lies in the hands of management with service task given to operators to function. Planning and production are separate lines of business and must be handled by separate hands for efficient and effective management. The contemporary practices Thought the strategies and concepts of mass production and assembly line manufacturing have been overpowered by various other methodologies like lean manufacturing and agile manufacturing techniques but there are areas and industries till date for which mass production and assembly lining suits the best. Companies which need to manufacture similar products in large quantities without much planning and involvement of management still use assembly line strategies and some companies in third world companies which cannot afford agile manufacturing practices are still into assembly line. Some of the examples are Coca-Cola, Unilever, PG, fast food restaurants like McDonalds etc. Th mass production and assembly lining was adopted by food chain restaurants to swiftly become able to cater to the ever increasing demands of customers. Though Taylorism has been used in modern era too but the age old concepts are obsolete and have been redefined by adding onto other functionalities into modular functioning of tasks. The job fragmentation now-a-days is been specialized and integrated seamlessly into the management of the organization. Decentralized approach leads to production employees being able to plan and have a stance in decision making of the company. Many companies in Australia, America or Europe are getting into agile practices with the essence of becoming flexible in order to adopt changes and adapt to the dynamism of the consumer market. The study of time and motion is being replaced by the concept of productivity and to get things done in the best possible manner. Taylorism and Fayolism in practice There has been management concepts being highlighted into the picture from the eyes of Taylor and Fayol. Fayol highlighted the concepts of authority and implementation of powers whereas, Taylor put more focus over the work organization and its efficiency. The scientific management principles brought a revolution in the area of manufacturing. Fayol on the other hand collected and presented principles of management focusing over administration of management. He suggested to start from top management and filter down the hierarchy which also suggested the Taylors approach to separate planing from functioning. But there is a contrast that Taylors process of management was bottom up but Fayol viewed this approach as top down breakdown. He stressed upon division of work among planning and production which was also supported by Taylor. He is the father of modern operational theory of management whereas Taylor was father of scientific management. People were valuable assets according to the t heory of Fayol. The contemporary world Hence, there were drastic changes in 20th century starting from the key ideologies of Taylor to break up the tasks into smaller units, coming onto the approach of Ford to start assembly line manufacturing around the world so as to accelerate the production system. Thereafter, Fayol integrated various theories and concepts of management and presented a profound description of management principles as a summary for effective business marketing. But in todays world the definitions of management have been changed and redefined from the eyes of age old theorists and management experts to the new arenas of inculcating previous practices into present methodologies to extract out the best from all the theories and to imbibe then into the principles of manufacturing and management.