Management Philosophies: F.W. Taylor - Essay Example

Born on March 20th 1856, Fredric Winslow Taylor, famously known as F.W. Taylor was a leading American management expert whose profession as a mechanical engineer inspired him to seek ways of enhancing industrial efficiency (Kyle & Nyland 2001, p.955). F.W. Taylor’s family was a wealthy Quaker family residing in Germantown, Philadelphia in the state of Pennsylvania; his father, Franklin Taylor was a lawyer from Princeton and dealer in mortgages while his mother Emily Annette Taylor was a devoted abolitionist. F.W.

Taylor was initially home-schooled by his mother after which he studied for two years in France and Germany and travelled Europe for nearly 18 months; Taylor went to Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire with the plans of making it to Harvard to become a lawyer like his father but despite his success at the Harvard entrance examinations, his rapidly deteriorating eyesight prompted him to choose a different career altogether. Taylor started out as an apprentice patternmaker and machinist at Enterprise Hydraulic Works where he amassed great shop floor experience and later become a machine-shop labourer at Midvale Steel Works, where he rapidly rose in ranks to becoming a time clerk, journeyman machinist, through to the posts of director of research and eventually the chief engineer of the works.

In his time at Midvale, Taylor made insightful observations that led him to his later concept of scientific management; for instance, Taylor noted that neither the workers nor the machines were performing at the optimum level, and this was resulting into huge labour costs for the company. Apart from his years of practicing management consultancy in Philadelphia, Taylor publicly promoted his management and machining concepts through lectures and writing; the Eastern Rate Case propelled F.W. Taylor and his Scientific Management