Frederick Taylor and Scientific Management

The main argument of Frederick Taylor’s “The Principles of Scientific Management” is that men are wasting their time in factories but there are ways to improve that.  The paper itself “was originally prepared for presentation to The American Society of Mechanical Engineers” so he was not writing for the uninformed.  This meant that his writing in the paper was not simple, it was not trying to address the everyman.  Taylor was aiming for people who had seen the issue of workers taking their time.  Written after the Industrial Revolution had been established, Taylor had seen the issues with the new factory system.  Taylor himself was a mechanical engineer so he had seen first hand the issues he was writing on.  His paper focused on the issue of “soldiering” and how it could be improved.  He referenced studies that proved that workers, when they got to work, would do everything slower than when they were walking to work or at home. Taylor was writing to expose this flaw in the factory system and gives ways to fix it.  He gave three distinct reasons about why the “soldiering” and explained each of them.  He proved that men do take it easy when they get to work and that it not only reflects the employee but also the employer.  Taylor’s complete message was that the factory system still is not perfect, that it has its flaws and they need to be recognized.  While the problem of laziness in the workplace exists, it is one that can be fixed.