Recently, I was responding to some other posts on other blogs about the federal loan to the auto companies, unions, and work rules.  The issue of Taylor's work came up and I realized I had never actually read the book, so I checked it out of the library.

I'm assuming everyone reading this is at least somewhat familiar with Taylor's work.  (Or like me, you think you're familiar with it.)  Time and motion studies. Narrowly defined tasks.  Moment by moment supervisor oversight.  All that sort of thing.

Many folks have attempted to discredit Taylor's ideas and not without reason.  He seemed to have a very condescending view of workers assuming that their primary interest was in doing as little work as possible.  (This from the book:  "The work [of the pig iron handler] is so crude and elementary in its nature that the writer firmly believes that it would be possible to train an intelligent gorilla  so as to become more efficient...than any man can be.")

Fundamental to Taylor's positions were the following points:

1. Workers could not be left to figure out the best way to do things for themselves.  (Taylor referred to this as the "initiative and incentive" approach. Workers were left to their own initiative and were provided incentives based on how much they got done.  Taylor saw this as the basis of the piece work approach to compensation, which he argued against.  I have always assumed Taylor was the originator of the piece work approach.)  They would inevitably be motivated to do the least possible.  In addition, workers didn't have the intellectual capacity to gather and analyze the information necessary to figure out the best way to do things.
2. For all tasks, there was one best way to do them.  It was best left to management to gather and analyze the data in the effort to develop this one best way. 
3. A supervisor's job was to make certain that employees carried out these tasks strictly according to the "one best way" as developed by the second party.
4. Worker efficiency, i.e., the amount of work produced in a given amount of time, is the primary focus.
5. Careful planning of all tasks and the schedule and manner in which they were to be carried out was necessary.  This planning was best done by staff members devoted to that task.  Workers couldn't be expected to do such planning.
   

Obviously, these positions aren't consistent with agile manufacturing thinking and practice.

In one case,  Taylor writes approvingly of the large staff that plans, very precisely, the work of six hundred coal shovelers.  From the book: "Thousands [italics are mine]of stop watch observations were made to study how quickly a laborer...can push his shovel into the pile of materials and then draw it out properly loaded." And then, "In order that each workman should be given his proper implement and his proper instructions for doing each job, it was necessary to establish a detailed system for directing men in their work..."   And still later, "In this office, every laborer's work was planned out well in advance, and the workmen were all moved from place to place by the clerks with elaborate diagrams or maps of the yard  before them, very much as chessmen are moved on a chess-board, a telephone and messenger system having  been installed for this purpose."  Whew!  And this was just to get a pile of coal shoveled!  The concept of "non value added activity" obviously hadn't occured to Fred Taylor.

In another case, he describes the application of his ideas to the work of women inspecting ball bearings.  To make certain that the inspectors apply the new method, batches of ball bearings that had already been inspected by the most able and trusted inspectors were re-inserted into the work flow as a check.  And to make sure that the performance of the most able and trusted inspectors stayed high, batches of bearings put together by supervisors with a known percentage of defects were occasionally put into the work flow.  In other words, two levels of "back up" inspections were employeed to make sure the primary inspection were being done correctly.  That's a lot of  time to arrange for the back up inspections.  Never mind the time to analyze the results from the primary inspections and the two levels of back up inspections.

On the other hand...

Other of Taylor's positions are quite consistent with agile and lean concepts:

1. Tasks should be standardized.
2. Matching aptitude and capability of worker to task is vital.  In others words, selection and hiring processes are a big deal.
   
3. Training of workers to standards is vital.
   
4. Supervisors work with their subordinates in a climate of mutual trust and respect.  Supervisors teach, coach, counsel and develop improvements that help the worker do her or his job better and more safely.  (Again, I thought the idea that supervisors simply oversee workers and punish for poor performance was a Taylor idea.  Turns out that he was fairly progressive in his views on this topic, for the times.)
5. Gathering and analyzing performance information and using that information to make changes in how tasks are carried out is vital.
6. The tools, equipment, and other conditions surrounding the worker and the task he or she is performing are as important as worker motivation.
7. There is an optimal level of performance for workers.  In other words, management's push for greater and greater efficiency eventually reaches the point of diminishing returns. 
   
• A corollary to this is that making work easier can increase workers' performance. (Taylor showed that a laborer's productivity could be enhanced by increasing the amount of rest.  Less than the needed rest lead to fatigue, which assured lower productivity than when more opportunity for rest was provided.)   In another case he showed that reducing the size of the shovel being used, and therefore the amount being shoveled in each instance, increased productivity.) 
  
• Another corollary to this is that a steady pace that hits a specific performance target is better than a faster pace that seeks to produce as much as possible in a given time.
8. There is "one best way" to carry out each task but that "one best way" might not be discovered until a good deal of data had been collected and analyzed and a number of trials and experiments been conducted.  In other words, continual improvement is vital.

It would be too much to call Taylor the "Father of Lean Manufacturing".  He clearly didn't grasp the concept of non-value added work.  Nor did he see that work processes didn't necessarily get any more productive when a few seconds were cut from work tasks.  But it's just as clear that industry in this country hasn't really implemented Taylor's ideas as he espoused them.  In some cases, it has cherry-picked some of his ideas that suited them, ignoring others that required more discipline.  (Sound familiar?)  In other cases, it has his ignored some of his important positions all together.