The first contemporary who had a direct influence on Taylor was Henry? Soup. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, 1868. Tang partnered with Yale Junior to establish Yale Tang Manufacturing Company, and Tang has been the general manager of the company. 1882 Tonga joined the mechanical engineers association, and soon became the vice chairman of the association. 1889 later became the chairman. It was with his support that the American Society of Mechanical Engineers became the pioneer organization of research management. 1886, Tang published the article "Engineers as Economists" in the Association. It is this article that blew the horn of scientific management. Tang pointed out that in enterprise management, management issues are as important as engineering and technical issues, but at that time, there was no research on management, no relevant literature, no institutions and media for exchanging experience, and no associations and organizations specializing in this work. Tang believes that research management should not only rely on "businessmen", clerks and accountants, but should be done by people with business management experience, training in business management and being able to master important issues. This historical mission should be accomplished by engineers. Management has a long-term significance and may be regarded as a modern art that establishes its position. This call of Tang dynasty adapted to the needs of the times, and scientific management also originated from it.
Tang not only called on everyone to learn management, but also proposed a revenue sharing system to motivate employees. Before the Tang Dynasty, some people advocated the practice of profit sharing. Tang believes that it is not enough to share profits, especially to ensure fairness. Simply put, even in loss-making enterprises, many people worked hard to create profits, but these profits were offset by the mistakes of other employees. Therefore, Tang advocates calculating the cost according to each production factor to ensure that different employees can share the benefits according to their actual achievements. Specifically, firstly, the task quota is determined scientifically, and then according to the completion of the task, the employer and the laborer each get half of the excess. This thought led to the study of various efficiency wage systems in the period of scientific management. Taylor's differential piecework wage system and Gant's task plus bonus system are both inspired by Tang's income sharing system.
After Taylor system was born, it was widely publicized in Meng Lo. 1905, Tang promoted Taylor system in his own company and hired Carl, Taylor's closest and most loyal disciple? Buzz supervises. 1906, Tang strongly recommended Taylor as the chairman of the mechanical engineers association. On the academic contribution of scientific management, Tang also has a lot of works. Mainly include: Revenue Sharing System published by 1889, Our Current Metric System and Universal Metric System published by 1906, Manufacturing Cost Principle published by 19 12, 19 15. In particular, the article "Evolution of Industrial Management" comprehensively summarizes the development process of scientific management from 1886 to 192 1.
Like soup, Oberlin? Smith is recognized as one of Taylor's pioneers. In Taylor's Workshop Management, Taylor once remembered that Smith said, "There are many founders of invention and innovation, and Smith is one of them." Smith graduated from New Jersey College and Philadelphia Institute of Technology. 1863, he founded a mold company in Bridgetown, New Jersey, which was later reorganized into Ferrakut Machine Company. Smith was an early member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, and served as the president of the Society after Tang and before Taylor. His greatest contribution to management is to establish a set of terminology and symbol memory system for factory mechanical parts. In management, memory symbol system plays a very important role. 188 1 year, Smith put forward three principles for establishing terminology naming and symbol system in Terminology of Mechanical Parts: first, distinctiveness, naming and symbols should be able to distinguish the referred objects; Second, memory, terminology should be convenient for people to remember related items, indicate the purpose, and be as consistent as possible with idioms; The third is conciseness, and the words are concise, clear and unambiguous. This system constitutes a jargon platform for scientific management. Smith also drew a detailed process flow chart in his factory and established it.
Symbol system indicating operation sequence and assembly process. Smith's contribution laid the foundation for the technical language of scientific management. Smith's main works on factory management are: 188 1 year's experimental mechanics, mechanical parts terminology, 1882 drawing system preservation, 1886 mechanical factory inventory evaluation, and special. 1900 modern machinery factory economy,191impression of foreign factory methods, naming and symbolization, etc.
At the same time as Tom and Smith, Henry Captain Metcalfe. He graduated from West Point Military Academy, and served as the director of Frankfurt Arsenal, Benicia Arsenal and Walter Flier Arsenal successively. 188 1 year, he reformed the factory management and implemented a new control system in the arsenal. This system attempts to combine labor control, cost accounting and production management, and based on "cumulative observation", formulate various quotas to measure efficiency and cost. He also established a complete and detailed card system, recording the details of work in two ways: material card and time card, and handing the cards to the foreman after the workers finished their work. Foremen and workers can automatically measure their work quality through this card transmission, and all information in production is transmitted and fed back through this card. The card is both a production instruction and a data file. Card system has replaced all kinds of reports in the past and is effective. Some of Taylor's ideas and even specific practices (such as the indicator card system) came from Metcalfe.
Metcalfe was not only satisfied with the practical operation of enterprise management, but also made a certain theoretical summary. 1885 published the book manufacturing cost and management of public and private factories. He pointed out that "cumulative observation" and the complete information formed by such observation are much more reliable than the information obtained by general impression and local understanding. He also distinguished management skills from management science, saying: "Management skills pursue certain effects, while management science mainly focuses on the causes of these effects. Therefore, it is very important to choose management skills as an explanation, but there is always corresponding management science. This management science collects and classifies past records so that future management skills can play a more effective role. The management of arsenal and other factories is a skill to a great extent, which is based on the application of certain principles in various situations. These principles combine to form the so-called management science. " Metcalfe's research reflected the call for the construction of management theory at that time.
Another pioneer was Frederick? Halsey. He graduated from department of mechanical engineering of Cornell University and worked as an engineer and general manager in the factory for many years. After 1894, he became the editor of American mechanical engineer magazine, and after 19 1 1, he became an associate professor of Columbia University, engaged in research work.
Halsey's main contribution is to put forward the bonus plan. 189 1 year, he published his paper "Bonus Scheme of Labor Remuneration" at the Society of Mechanical Engineers, and put forward a new calculation method of remuneration. In his view, the three wage systems at that time all had obvious defects. One is the traditional hourly wage system, which has little incentive; One is to implement a wide piece-rate wage system, which has an incentive effect, but after workers increase production, employers often reduce piece-rate wages; There is also the income sharing system proposed by Tang. Although it is much better than the first two, there are still problems, mainly because non-employee factors affecting revenue are not considered. Lazy people and diligent people can share the benefits, while workers share the benefits but not the losses. In view of this, halsey proposed a simple bonus scheme. The basic method is to take the existing output of workers as the standard output and the current production time as the standard time. If the laborer completes the work ahead of time or in excess, the bonus will be paid according to a certain proportion, generally calculated according to 1/3 to 1/2 of the excess income. The advantage of this method is that it does not need complicated calculation, and the basic income of workers is guaranteed. The most important thing is that the excess income is shared by the employer and the employee, and the employer should get 1/2 to 2/3 from the excess income, so that the employer will not lower the wage rate at will. This scheme is an improved version of soup scheme, so people usually call it "Towne-Halsey scheme".
It is such a group of pioneers of management that paved the way for the birth of Taylor system. If scientific management is the grand finale of this period, then from the Tang Dynasty to halsey, tuning and prelude have already begun, and sometimes a door will be formed to replace the scenery.
Halsey has written many books, only about his bonus scheme, besides the papers of 189 1, there are also bonus scheme management of 1899, experience of labor remuneration bonus scheme of 1900, and bonus scheme economics of 1902. Halsey bonus system has been in parallel with Taylor's differential piece-rate wage system and Gantt's task plus bonus system in later scientific management practice. Taylor's salary design must be based on strict scientific calculation, and the biggest advantage of halsey's scheme is its simple operation. Especially in non-repetitive work, halsey's scheme is more acceptable. Taylor also admitted that the Don-halsey scheme was a great invention and the best of all previous wage systems.