Frederick W. Taylor

Frederick Winslow Taylor, a mechanical engineer born in 1856 in Philadelphia, is regarded as the father of scientific management.

Taylor forewent an admissions offer from Harvard Law School due to poor eyesight, and instead served an apprenticeship as a pattern-maker at Philadelphia's Enterprise Hydraulic Works. In 1878 he he moved to Midvale Steel Works, where he progressed from machine operator to chief engineer. After completing (by correspondence) a degree in mechanical engineering from Stevens Institute of Technology in 1883, and working for several years as a manager at the Manufacturing Investment Company of Philadelphia, Taylor began practice in 1893 as an independent consultant. Among his most notable projects were a series of experiments to develop high speed steel undertaken at Bethlehem Steel (Bethlehem, Pennsylvania) between 1898 and 1901.

From 1906 to 1907 Taylor was president of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. He eventually joined the faculty at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. His many publications include the 1911 Principles of Scientific Management. Taylor died in 1915.

Taylor's method revolved around the time and motion study, in which he broke a job into parts, then altered each step as needed to reduce the time taken to complete it. He insisted that managers be employed in lieu of foremen to implement and enforce his system. Taylor's work, which threatened to deskill and speed up industrial work, was the subject of resentment among many workers. In 1912 a strike over "Taylorization" at the Watertown Arsenal prompted a congressional investigation of Taylor's program.