From F Winslow Taylor to W Edwards Deming

- Over a Century of Progress?

John F Dalrymple
Computing Devices Professor of Quality Management
Centre for Management Quality Research
RMIT University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Abstract

The 20th Century began with the work of Frederick Winslow Taylor and approached its end with the
work of W Edwards Deming. The Century witnessed the dominance of the British Empire, and its
decline. The undoubted power of the United States manufacturing industry and its embarkation on the
road to globalisation followed. The rise and rise of Japanese manufacturing industry coupled with the
emergence of the Asian ‘Tiger Economies’ which followed on, all provides a very rich landscape
within which to consider the works of these influential management thinkers.
This paper seeks to consider the similarities and differences between the thinking of these
acknowledged leaders in the field and attempts to link their contributions to the development of
management thought. This will be done by reference to both men’s original work, rather than the
interpretation of their work by others. In the process, the paper seeks to make a contribution to one of
the important thrusts of MAAOE’s objectives, namely the linking of the quality management thinking
at the end of the Century to the recognised influential foundations of management at the start of the
Century. The first and most fundamental similarity between their works is that they both seek to
identify and delineate, in an unambiguous way, the responsibilities and accountabilities of
management. The paper speculates whether this is the reason that, in some environments, neither may
have had the full impact that their work might have commanded.

Key words &Phrases:

Introduction paper begins by looking at the work of Taylor

The development of some important areas of
management thought in the 20th Century
began with the work of Frederick Winslow
Taylor (1856 – 1915) and ended (almost) with
the work of William Edwards Deming (1900 –
1993). The former was variously described as
the greatest management thinker of the 20th
Century and demonised as the dehumanising
face of management. The latter really only
emerged onto the centre stage in the 1980’s
when he himself was an octogenarian.
The common features of their approach were
that both were seeking to improve
productivity, and both saw it as a management
responsibility to make it happen. Both were
adamant that the important role that
management had to play was to address the
problems of the system, since shopfloor
workers are not well placed to do that.
Both of these influential thinkers, then, had an
approach to organisations which placed heavy
burdens on the management of the
organisation and presented the opportunity to
assess whether management was fulfilling
their role. Systems thinking was at the core of
the beliefs and approach of both men, and this
through the medium of his own words and
examining the links between his work and the
‘modern’ quality management or excellence
frameworks of today. Linkage between the
work of Taylor and that of Deming and his
management philosophy will also be
examined.
Frederick Winslow Taylor
Introduction
In the most recent biography of Taylor, the
omnipresent influence of his thinking is
highlighted, with citations in fields as diverse
as cooking recipes, housework, teaching of
music, and literature, as well as the better
known influences on production and
administrative systems. (Kanigel(1997)). The
book reviews of Kanigel’s work are revealing
in their insights that they give to the
perceptions of Taylor almost a century after
his work came to prominence.
Cohen(1998), in a review of Kanigel’s book,
acknowledged that Taylor had been
influential, but also opined that “Taylor set out
to destroy the dignity of the labour
aristocracy”. Kleiner(1998), on the other
hand, refers to Druckers view that Taylor was
ranked with Freud, Darwin and Marx in his
influence on the modern world. He suggests
that “Taylorism is the dead opposite of a more
recent industrial miracle cure – the quality
movement pioneered by W. Edwards Deming,
Joseph Juran and others”. When comparing
the Taylor approach and that of the quality
movement, Kleiner relates an anecdote about
Juran, whom he asked if he had been known
as an “efficiency expert”. Juran’s reported
response “No, that would be like calling a
lawyer a shyster.” Kleiner’s review ends with
a speculation about whether Taylorism will
continue, or will it be rejected. Smith(1998)
in his review begins with an anecdote of a
sporting event where he observes a beer
vendor who has a very efficient way of
opening cans. This leads on to a précis of the
book, with a concluding section on the
relevance of Taylor to business and society.
He cites a number of recent cases where
‘efficiency’ has been paramount at the
expense of ‘effectiveness’. Smith concludes,
however, that it does not matter what one’s
view of Taylor is, his “life and work are of
central importance to business and society”.
Lee’s(1999) account of Kanigel’s book is
punctuated with the odd derogatory reference,
but he offers the view, early on in the review
that “If he hadn’t existed, we would have had
to invent him” and he concludes “….Taylor’s
ideas have formed the underpinnings of much
of our life in the 20th century. And it is a good
bet he’ll follow us into the 21st”.
Harris’s(1999) account of the book is scathing
of Taylor, referring to him as “….the artful
rearranger of facts, the myth-maker, the
outright liar”. He concludes that Taylor’s
contribution was ‘limited’ and that it was
Taylor’s followers who made the impact of
‘scientific management’ a reality, rather than
Taylor himself. Lindsey(1998) presents a
longer and more detailed account of the
content of Kanigel’s book, referring to
Taylor’s work in the metal cutting field as
well as his approach to ‘scientific
management’. This account discusses the
industrial context of the ‘zero-sum game’
between shopfloor and management which
gave rise to conflict between management and
labour, and credits Taylor with the insight that
as long as management did not understand the
shopfloor work, it was not possible to manage
for process improvement. The ‘new breed’ of
managers in the Taylor system ‘were
knowledge workers’. Lindsey goes on to
suggest that “Much of the dislocation and pain
caused by corporate restructurings over the
past decade can be laid at the feet of Frederick
Taylor.” The article concludes “For better or
worse, in our liberating affluence and our
stifling bureaucracy, we are inheritors of
Taylor’s hopeful, troubled legacy.”
This widespread interest in Taylor and the
influence that his work has exerted since its
publication is quite remarkable. In the
management history field, there is a steady
stream of work on the historical record of
Taylor’s life and work. Among this work is a
note by Van Riper(1995) recording the
influence that Taylor had had on ‘public
administration’ as represented by Luther
Gulick, who had known Taylor personally.
This paper records the lecture that Gulick gave
on the application of ‘scientific management’
to what we would now call the public sector.
Gulick is reported as saying “By scientific
management, I mean the rational
determination of purpose and the intelligent
organisation and utilisation of manpower,
technology and things to accomplish that
end.” This is a somewhat more strategic
interpretation of ‘scientific management’ than
one would discern from some of the
commenatries referred to above. An
additional part of the fascination of the
segment of Gulick’s speech reported by Van
Riper is the clarity with which the complexity
of the public sector is described.
Dean(1997a) reports on the historical
exposures of Taylor’s work in media other
than the printed book in the author’s name.
This exposure included “The American
Magazine” and the “The Journal of
Accountancy”. This paper reproduces some
of the controversy and debate which
surrounded Taylor’s work at the time. As an
Appendix, Dean reproduces a letter to the
editor of “The American Magazine” from a
critic and Taylor’s response. In this article,
Dean suggests that there is evidence of much
more criticism of Taylor’s work which was
sent to the editor, but was not published.
Dean(1997b) chronicles the evident frustration
and consequent activity of Taylor in
attempting to have ‘The Principles of
Scientific Management’ published by the
American Society of Mechanical Engineers
(ASME). Taylor had intended that his work
would be published in the ‘Transactions’ of
ASME and submitted it for consideration. He
had also briefed a number of magazine editors
about the principles of ‘scientific
management’, and was keen to be published in
the ASME Transactions. Taylor submitted the
manuscript and lobbied for its publicatoin.
After a year in which his work was in the
hands of ASME without publication, he
published a monograph as a private printing to
try to ensure that the full work was published
prior to the magazine articles appearing.
Dean(1997c) goes on to outline the
development of a book called the ‘Primer of
Scientific Management’ by Gilbreth. This
paper casts some light on the use of the
questions and answers in ‘The American
Magazine’ as a vehicle for Gilbreth’s
publication. It also goes on to detail some of
the more voluminous criticisms of Taylor’s
‘principles of scientific management’ which
were sent to that publication.
Wrege et al.(1997) use the case of Taylor’s
life and work to illustrate the use of non-
conventional sources for historical research in
the management field. In doing so, the
authors discovered the importance of Taylor’s
involvement with Sandford Thomson. This
relationship cast some light on Taylor’s
activities in the period 1896-1903. Thomson
had been working exclusively for Taylor
under a confidentiality agreement in that
period and was producing much of the data
that Taylor subsequently used in his work.
The authors also go on to illustrate how other
types of evidence were used to investigate
land holdings and hence, some of Taylor’s
interests in steel cutting.
Taylor’s Written Work
The source documents for this section are a
“Report of a lecture by and questions to Mr F
W Taylor A Transcription” (1995) and “The
Principles of Scientific Management” (Taylor
(1998)). It would be easy to criticise the
language used in these texts when viewed in
the modern context. Comparison of people
with, for example, oxen, and the reference to
female workers as ‘girls’ have been removed
from everyday usage by the general move
towards less pejorative, offensive. sexist and
insulting language. However, the texts were
written at a time when such language was in
common usage.
These texts by Taylor form the basis of much
of the approach to industrial management
today, including the field that is described as
‘operations management’ in its broadest sense.
The relationship between Taylor’s thinking, as
presented in these texts, and the modern
quality management approach will be now be
explored. It could be argued that, if one were
to look hard enough, it would be possible to
find evidence of virtually anything in an
extended text. However, when there are a
large number of individual pieces of evidence,
that tends to support the hypothesis that there
is a relationship between, in this instance, the
work of Taylor and the modern quality
management thinking.
The essence of modern quality management
thinking is that the organisation should seek to
improve every aspect of its activity. That such
improvement is an ongoing and endless task,
and that it is the responsibility of all people in
the organisation to contribute to this goal.
Some of the elements of the quest for
improvement include teamwork, leadership,
training, constancy of purpose, sustainability,
knowledge of variability, etc. Some of the
approaches to this include ISO9000 series of
standards, business excellence models and
frameworks and other comprehensive
organisation wide analytical processes. The
Australian Quality Council Business
Excellence Framework(1999) consists of the
following categories:
1. Leadership and Innovation
2. Strategy and planning processes
3. Data, information and knowledge
4. People
5. Customer and market focus
6. Processes, products and services
7. Business results.
The principles of business excellence from
which the framework is derived are as
follows:
1. Clear direction allows organisational
alignment and a focus on the achievement
of goals.
2. Mutually agreed plans translate
organisational direction into action.
3. Understanding what customers value,
now and in the future, influences
organisational direction, strategy and
action
4. To improve the outcome, improve the
system and its associated processes
5. The potential of an organisation is
realised through its people’s enthusiasm,
resourcefulness and participation
6. Continual improvement and innovation
depend on continual learning.
7. All people work in a system, outcomes
are improved when people work on the
system.
8. Effective use of facts, data and
knowledge leads to improved decisions.
9. All systems and processes exhibit
variability which impacts on
predictability and performance.
10. Organisations provide value to the
community through their actions to
ensure a clean, safe and prosperous
society.
11. Sustainability is determined by an
organisation’s ability to create and deliver
value for all stakeholders
12. Senior leadership’s constant role
modelling of each of these principles, and
creating a supportive environment in
which to live these principles, will help
the organisation and its people to reach
their potential.
The work of Taylor will be examined within
the context of these principles.
Taylor’s(1998 p1) book begins with the
statement that “The principal object of
management should be to secure the
maximum prosperity for the employer,
coupled with maximum prosperity for the
employee.” He goes on to define ‘maximum
prosperity’ for the employer as “the
development of every branch of the business
to its highest state of excellence, so that the
prosperity may be permanent.” His meaning
for the employee includes increased
compensation, but also relates to efficiency,
effectiveness and the ‘highest class of work’
suited to the employee’s natural abilities
achieved through the development of the
employee by training. There is evidence that
Taylor(p69) understood the need to align the
whole organisation, carry the workforce in the
new direction and convert plans into action.
These citations and other evidence in the book
would suggest that Taylor was advocating
principles 1 and 2 above.
At the end of the 19th century, Taylor (Pp4, 5,
71) recognised that what the potential
customer wanted, and would want in the
future, availability of products and services at
a price that they could afford. In other words,
access to products and services. He regarded
the denial of products to customers on the
basis of high price caused by inefficient and
ineffective work as a national imperative for
improvement. The perception was that the
markets existed, but the price was too high.
The thrust of his argument was that his
approach should provide prosperity for
employer and employee and a better standard
of life for all other citizens. There appears to
be a recognition of principle 3 above within
the context of the market environments which
existed at the time.
Principle 4 above is, in many people’s view as
indicated in the introduction, the only thing
that Taylor’s work was about, and, in
particular, only the processes part of it.
However, there is evidence (Taylor 1995 and
1998, Pp iv, 58, 59,68) that he recognised the
importance of the ‘system’. The evidence
suggests he had well-developed knowledge of
how improvements in outcome are achieved
through improvements in the system and its
processes.
In many cases, exemplified by Lindsey(1998),
the perception of Taylor is that he had no
place in his scheme of management for the
shopfloor worker and his input to the
realisation of the potential of the organisation.
Lindsey opined “There is no mistaking
Taylor’s views on this subject; he had no use
for workers from the neck up”. This would
suggest that principle 5 had no place in
Taylor’s scheme of things. However, careful
reading of Taylor (1998, p 74) suggests the
contrary “….the time is coming where all
great things will be done by that type of co-
operation in which each man performs the
function for which he is best suited, each man
preserves his own individuality and is
supreme in his particular function, and each
man at the same time loses none of his
originality and proper personal initiative, and
yet is controlled by and must work
harmoniously with many other men.” There
would appear to be a partitioning of the
resourcefulness and participation, in particular
the allocation of a role to management which
had, hitherto, been absent. Taylor (1998, p16
) states “It is this combination of the initiative
of the workmen, coupled with the new types
of work done by the management, that makes
scientific management so much more efficient
than the old plan.” Taylor (1998, p 67)
recognises the scope for personal innovation is
more restricted, but he advocates ‘suggestion
schemes”.
In the case of principle 6, it is quite clear that
Taylor’s approach was one of ongoing
improvement. Indeed, it could be argued that
he took this principle to the ultimate extreme.
Taylor (1998 p 54) talks of ongoing
experiments to determine improved ways of
cutting steel which spanned a period of some
26 years. Taylor (1998 p67) in advocating
suggestion schemes and continuous
improvement, also insists that suggestions are
taken seriously, experiments are carried out, if
necessary, and that where there are real
improvements, these should be adopted as the
new method by all. The worker should also
be appropriately rewarded. Thus, Taylor’s
‘one best way’ is not a static thing, but, in
modern quality management terms, it is best
until a new and demonstrably better way is
established. A heavy burden was placed on
management to teach workers and coach them
in improving performance.
With regard to principle 7, Taylor (1998,
pp58, 59) acknowledges that there are parts of
‘the system’ which the shopfloor worker is not
enabled to tackle “Many of these changes are
matters entirely beyond his control, even if he
knows what ought to be done.” It is quite
clear (p28) that he recognised that it was
necessary to optimise the operation of the
system, rather than optimising each of the
elements or subsystems of the system. It
could be argued that the whole of the book is
really an advocacy of ‘working on the
system.’
It is, perhaps in the case of principles 8 and 9
that Taylor has had the greatest impact. It was
clear from his work that he recognised the
fundamental applicability of the scientific
method and evidence based decision making
in a management environment. He also
recognised that it was difficult to manage what
one could not understand, and his approach to
data collection and use was based on the idea
that one way of gaining better understanding
was to measure and quantify. In the case of
variability, the underlying ideas of the ‘one
best way’ were that if a ‘best way’ could be
found, then it would be advantageous for all of
those doing the task to do it that way.
Taylor(1998, p64) also gave the first
indication that ‘standardisation’ and ‘written
instructions’ were an important part of the
management of variation. Nowadays, we
might refer to ‘procedures’ and ‘work
instructions’ in the case of the ISO9000 set of
standards.
Taylor also provides evidence of recognition
of the employer’s responsibility to ensure that
workers were employed in ‘safe’ working
conditions in order to ensure sustainability of
the worker’s contribution. For example, (p17)
“…in no case is the workman to be called
upon to work at a pace which would be
injurious to his health. The task is always so
regulated that the man who is well suited to
his job will thrive while working at this rate
during a long term of years and grow happier
and more prosperous, instead of being
overworked.” The emphasis on recruitment of
the correct man, appropriate training and
development and monitoring of progress are
all elements that would be recognised today as
good practice.
Taylor(1998 p71) also recognised the
importance of stakeholders. “At first glance
we see only two parties to the transaction, the
workmen and their employers. We overlook
the third great party, the whole people, - the
consumers, who buy the product of the first
two and who ultimately pay both the wages of
the workmen and the profits of the
employers.” The introduction to the book (p
iii) begins with a statement about natural
resources and the importance of not
squandering the non-renewable resources.
Taylor likens the inefficient way of working to
the needless and senseless squandering of
those natural resources. It is, I think,
unknown whether he related inefficient work
practices with the use of much greater
amounts of natural resources than would be
required in a more efficient workplace.
The book The Principles of Scientific
Management lays down a very definite role
for management. That role is to recruit the
correct people for the job (p28), train them
how to carry out the jobs for which they were
recruited (p15) and to ensure that they have
the appropriate tools to carry out the tasks
involved in the job(p15). It is clear that
Taylor included not only the physical tools,
like shovels designed for the task, but also
procedures and instructions, as well as items
like ‘slide rules’ to be used to determine
cutting speeds etc. In other words, he had
identified the need for appropriate
infrastructure to support the processes which
were to be used to produce the goods and
services to be delivered. This placed on
management (p42) the responsibility to ensure
that the material flows were efficient and did
not impede improvements in throughput.
Taylor was quite adamant that ‘scientific
management’ had four elements (p68) “First.
The development of a true science. Second.
The scientific selection of the workman.
Third. His scientific education and
development Fourth. Intimate friendly co-
operation between the management and the
men.” He distinguished between what he
called the ‘mechanisms’ and the ‘essence’ of
scientific management (p67), and goes on to
warn that the application of the ‘mechanisms’
without the accompanying ‘essence’ will
inevitably result in failure and disaster. He
also indicates that the change from the old
system of ‘initiative and incentive’ inevitably
takes time and attempts to reduce the time
needed are likely to result in failure (p68). He
also referred to the need for a “..complete
revolution in the mental attitudes and habits of
all of those engaged in the management as
well as of the workmen.” Nowadays, this
would probably be referred to as a need to
change the ‘workplace culture’.
In the text, “Introduction to Operations
Engineering’, Griffin(1971) noted that a
number of people had made positive
contributions to the advancement of
management thought by building on the work
of Taylor. Many others, however, had
impeded progress by implementing some of
Taylor’s thinking without taking the
philosophy as a whole. In the main, they had
adopted the payment systems and work study
without the co-operation between
management and men that he considered
essential. This stripped away the management
responsibility to learn about the work
processes and act as ‘facilitator’ and ‘coach’
in the pursuit of improved efficiency. The
‘initiative and incentive’ schemes that
‘scientific management’ was intended to
replace included (p15) “…an almost equal
division of the work between the management
and the workmen. It is not surprising,
therefore, that given the choice, those in
management positions selected the parts of
‘scientific management’ which enabled them
to make the ‘initiative and incentive’ approach
more effective from a management
perspective, namely the ‘mechanisms’. At the
same time, they were ignoring the elements
which made significant demands on the
management skills of the managers, and
placed significant burdens on them, namely
the ‘essence’.
There is evidence that Taylor had some insight
into other disciplines as they affected the
success of implementation of ‘scientific
management’. He recognised the importance
of physiology in the areas of manual work and
interacted with the work of the Gilbreths (p40)
and others in pursuit of implementation.
Some insights into motivation are evident
(p48) in his consideration of how the reward
systems might be constructed in order to
provide the type of encouragement and
feedback which would be meaningful for the
shopfloor. He dismissed ‘profit sharing’
schemes on the basis that the reward is too far
removed from the time that it was earned and
thus they lose their impact. Workers are also
seen to be prepared to shre profits, but not
losses and Taylor suggests that, since they
may not contribute to either because they are
beyond the workers control they are an
inappropriate way to design a reward system.
His insights into social science (p37) indicates
that he recognised the social impact that some
of the changes may have.
W Edwards Deming
In turning to Dr W Edwards Deming, it is
remarkable that he had worked as a consultant
statistician until he was an octogenarian
before he became generally recognised in the
United States of America. Petersen(1997)
draws attention to the availability of Deming’s
personal and professional papers in the
Library of Congress. In this paper, Petersen
gives a brief outline of Deming’s life and
work, including some of the detail which
covering the period to July 1980 when the
NBC documentary “If Japan Can, Why Can’t
We?” was shown on television. Thereafter,
Dr Deming emerged from relative obscurity in
the USA onto the world quality scene. These
papers demonstrate the influence that
Shewhart and others had on Deming and the
high esteem in which Shewhart was held by
Deming.
The archive contains some 58000 items and
occupies over 70 linear feet of shelving. This
will provide both scholars of management
history and of the quality movement with a
rich research environment, which was
Petersen’s motive in publicising the existence
of the archive as well as indicating some of
the research which might be feasible through
the archive. For instance, the author gives an
account of Deming’s views on the Plan-Do
Study-Act or PDSA cycle, named the
Shewhart Cycle, and the Plan-Do-Check-Act
or PDCA cycle which Deming in his written
material in the archive apparently disowns.
Some of Deming’s own published written
work, includes “Out of the Crisis Quality,
Productivity and Competitive
Position”(Deming, 1990) and “The New
Economics for Industry, Government and
Education” (Deming, 1993). It is clear from
the Preface of the former, and the first Chapter
of the latter that Deming views management
in his country with some concern. He
advocates ‘transformation’(Deming, 1990, p
ix) of American management, beginning in
Chapter 1 with the statement that since there is
a stable system, quality improvement is the
responsibility of management. He goes on to
indicate, through the ‘Deming Chain
Reaction’ (p3) how improved quality
improves productivity, lowers unit costs,
increases competitiveness, and generates more
jobs. Here, Deming is seeking greater
efficiency and effectiveness of American
production.
His view is quite clear, the failures lie in bad
management, and he says so (Deming, 1990, p
ix). Echoing Taylor, Deming concludes that
“Best efforts and hard work, not guided by
knowledge, only dig deeper the pit that we are
in” (Deming, 1993, p 1). Reflecting on his
experience of Japan, he says of the Japanese
experience (p 3) “With no lenders or
stockholders to press for dividends, this effort
became an undivided bond between
management and the production workers”.
This is a sentiment very reminiscent of
Taylor’s “Intimate and friendly co-operation
between the management and the men” (p68).
Deming(1990, p248) discusses the aim of
leadership as follows: “The aim of leadership
should be to improve the performance of man
and machine…..Specifically, a leader must
learn by calculation wherever meaningful
figures are at hand, or by judgement otherwise
who, if any, of his people are outside the
system…..and hence are in need of either
individual help or deserve recognition in some
form”. He goes on to stress the responsibility
of ‘leaders’ to ‘improve the system’. Further
on (p249) he continues “…responsibility is to
accomplish greater and greater consistency of
performance within the system, so that
apparent differences between people
continually diminish.” The importance of
training in contributing to the fulfilment of
these responsibilities is stressed in the next
section of the same page.
One of Deming’s major areas of concern was
with systems of annual performance review.
Instead (Deming, 1990, p117) he advocates
‘leadership training’ to help ‘focus on the
outcome’. He suggest “..Institute education in
leadership….More careful selection of
people…..Better education and training after
selection……instead of being a judge, will be
a colleague, counselling and leading his
people on a day-to-day basis learning from
them and with them…”.
Deming(1993, p94) writes of a ‘system of
profound knowledge’, which, he suggests
“individual components of the system, instead
of being competitive, will for optimization
reenforce each other for the accomplishment
of the aim of the system” and “..provides a
new map of theory by which to understand
and optimize the organisations that we work
in”. On this theme, he suggests that
“…profound knowledge comes from
outside…”.
Deming(1993, p104) stresses the importance
of theory and that knowledge is built on
theory. Theory fits observations of the past
and enables forecasting of the future. Theory
is built by refining theory based on experience
of comparison of prediction with observation.
The efforts of Taylor in analysing human
work in great detail was part of his quest to
build theory about how much physical work a
worker could be reasonably expected to do
without injury to health. Taylor’s extensive
work in the science of metal cutting is a
further example of his concern with
understanding and developing theory to
contribute to his quest for improved
efficiency.
Conclusion
Taylor and Deming come from the opposite
ends of the 20th Century. Much has been
written about the former, whilst, no doubt,
much remains to be written about the latter.
However, careful reading of each of their
writing indicates that there are many
similarities between their views and
approaches. Both allocate significant
responsibility to management for the
achievement of the organisation’s objectives.
Both advocate teamwork and co-operation
between management and shopfloor workers.
Both advocate ‘pride in workmanship’
(Taylor’s approach is to use the phrase ‘first
class man’). Both stress the importance of
theory and of knowledge, and both, in their
own ways indicate that significant
improvement can only be achieved by
engaging with someone who is not the prime
performer of the work, but someone from
outside that grouping. Other similarities
abound.
It is probably most noteworthy that, in the
case of Taylor, “management” was – and in
many cases still is – very keen to adopt some
of the things advocated by ‘scientific
management’ time study and work
measurement for example. However, the
areas which place demands on ‘management’
in the form of teaching and training,
knowledge of the work, etc have been less
well absorbed into management practice.
Taylor also considered that the ‘initiative and
incentive’ approach to management were
deficient. In Deming’s case, perhaps the most
difficult area to gain acceptance was that of
annual performance related pay schemes. In
the Taylor environment, that would be
regarded as part of the ‘initiative and
incentive’ approach to compensation.
In the cases of both writers, they warned
against picking out parts of their ‘system’ and
using them in isolation – Taylor with
‘mechanism and essence’ and Deming with
‘the Deming philosophy’. Both warned that
this was the route to failure. The management
of change was a further common factor,
Taylor warning that the transition to ‘scientific
management’ would take several years and
Deming warning against the ‘hope for instant
pudding’.
It is interesting that the messages that Taylor
was conveying at the beginning of the 20th
century are so similar to those that Deming
was conveying at the end of the century. In
many cases, the ‘initiative and incentive’
approach to management continues to prevail,
despite its failure to deliver sustainable
prosperity in much of the developed world.
If one were to criticise Taylor, it might be that
we should do so on the basis that he persisted
with experiments on metal cutting for 30
years, and did not invent ‘design of
experiments’ or ‘Taguchi methods’ to speed
up the process! Deming, however, worked
with Sir Ronald Fisher a couple of decades
after Taylor had died, so perhaps the theory
was not quite in place in the 1880’s. If one
were to criticise Dr Deming, perhaps it would
be on the basis that he should have ‘come out’
when he was still a sexagenarian – or even
earlier. Perhaps, then, there would have been
greater understanding and adoption of his
approach.
References
1. Australian Business Excellence
Framework(1999), Australian Quality
Council, Melbourne Australia
2. Austin, N. K. (1999), “Finding your way”,
Incentive, Vol. 173 No. 5, pp. 17
3. Brink, L. (1998), “The man with the plan”,
Reason, Vol. 29 No. 8, pp. 48-52
4. Cohen, N. (1998), “From work to
drudgery”, New Statesman, Vol. 11 No. 491,
pp. 45-47
5. Dean, C. C. (1997a), “The Principles of
Scientific Management by Fred Taylor:
Exposures in print beyond the private
printing”, Journal of Management History,
Vol. 3 No. 1, pp. 4-17_
6. Dean, C. C. (1997b), “The Principles of
Scientific Management by Frederick W.
Taylor: the private printing”, Journal of
Management History, Vol. 3 No. 1, pp. 18-30
7. Dean, C. C. (1997), “Primer of Scientific
Management by Frank B. Gilbreth: A
response to publication of Taylor’s Principles
in The American Magazine”, Journal of
Management History, Vol. 3 No. 1, pp. 31-40
8. Deming, W. Edwards. (1982), Out of the
Crisis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
Center for Advanced Engineering Study,
Cambridge, Mass. 02139
9. Deming, W. Edwards. (1993), The New
Economics for Industry, Government,
Education, Massachusetts Institute of
Technology Center for Advanced Engineering
Study, Cambridge, MA 02139
10. Griffin, W. C. (1971), Introduction to
Operations Engineering, Richard D. Irwin,
Inc., USA
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Frederick Winslow Taylor and the Enigma of
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96-97
12. Kanigel, R. (1997), The One Best Way,
Penguin Books, New York
13. Kleiner, A. (1998), “The father of us all?”,
Across the Board, Vol. 35 No. 1, pp. 57-59
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And the worst idea that turned out… well, not
so bad after all”, Training, Vol. 36 No. 12, pp.
33-34
15. Peterson, P. (1997), “Library of Congress
archives: additional information about W.
Edwards Deming (1900-1993) now available”,
Journal of Management History, Vol. 3 No. 2,
pp. 98-119
16. Smith, W. (1998), “One Best Way:
Frederick Winslow Taylor and the Enigma of
Efficiency”, Business and Society, Vol. 37
No. 3, pp. 346-352
17. Taylor, F. W. (1911), The Principles of
Scientific Management, Harper & Bros, New
York.
18. Taylor,F W (1995), A Transcript “Report
of a lecture by and questions put to Mr F. W.
Taylor ”, Journal of Management History,
Vol. 1 No. 1, pp. 8-32
19. Van Riper, P. P. (1995), “Luther Gulick on
Frederick Taylor and scientific management”,
Journal of Management History, Vol. 1, No. 2
20. Wrege, C. D; Greenwood, R. G;
Greenwood, R. (1997), “A new method of
discovering primary management history: two
examples where “little things mean a lot”,
Journal of Management History, Vol. 3, No. 1,
pp. 59-92
Autobiographical Notes
John Dalrymple is Computing Devices
Professor of Quality Management and
Founding Director of the Centre for
Management Quality Research at the Royal
Melbourne Institute of Technology,
Melbourne, Australia. Originally a physicist,
John was the first physics graduate of the
University of Stirling, Scotland. He graduated
Doctor of Philosophy in Applied Physics at
the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow before
moving back to Stirling’s Management
Science Department. John moved to Australia
to establish the Centre in 1997.