Taylor, Frederick W.

Frederick W. Taylor, in full Frederick Winslow Taylor, (born March 20, 1856, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.—died March 21, 1915, Philadelphia), American inventor and engineer who is known as the father of scientific management. His system of industrial management, known as Taylorism, greatly influenced the development of industrial engineering and production management throughout the world.

Phillips Exeter Academy

Taylor was the son of a lawyer. He entered Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire in 1872, where he led his class scholastically. After passing the entrance examination for Harvard University, he was forced to abandon plans for matriculation, as his eyesight had deteriorated from night study. With sight restored in 1875, he was apprenticed to learn the trades of patternmaker and machinist at the Enterprise Hydraulic Works in Philadelphia. Three years later he went to the Midvale Steel Company, where, starting as a machine shop labourer, he became successively shop clerk, machinist, gang boss, foreman, maintenance foreman, head of the drawing office, and chief engineer.

In 1881, at age 25, he introduced time study at the Midvale plant. The profession of time study was founded on the success of this project, which also formed the basis of Taylor’s subsequent theories of management science. Essentially, Taylor suggested that production efficiency in a shop or factory could be greatly enhanced by close observation of individual workers and elimination of waste time and motion in their operation. Though the Taylor system provoked resentment and opposition from labour when carried to extremes, its value in rationalizing production was indisputable and its impact on the development of mass production techniques immense.

Studying at night, Taylor earned a degree in mechanical engineering from Stevens Institute of Technology in 1883. The following year he became chief engineer at Midvale and completed the design and construction of a novel machine shop. Taylor might have enjoyed a brilliant full-time career as an inventor—he had more than 40 patents to his credit—but his interest in what was soon called scientific management led him to resign his post at Midvale and to become general manager of the Manufacturing Investment Company (1890–93), which in turn led him to become a consulting engineer in management,” a profession that Taylor himself developed. He served a long list of prominent firms ending with the Bethlehem Steel Corporation; while at Bethlehem he developed high-speed steel and performed notable experiments in shoveling and pig-iron handling.

Taylor retired at age 45 but continued to devote time and money to promote the principles of scientific management through lectures at universities and professional societies. From 1904 to 1914, with his wife and three adopted children, Taylor lived in Philadelphia. The American Society of Mechanical Engineers elected him president in 1906, the same year that he was awarded an honorary doctor of science degree by the University of Pennsylvania. Many of his influential publications first appeared in the Transactions of that society—namely, “Notes on Belting” (1894), “A Piece-Rate System” (1895), “Shop Management” (1903), and “On the Art of Cutting Metals” (1906). The Principles of Scientific Management was published commercially in 1911.

Taylor’s fame increased after his testimony in 1912 before a special committee of the U.S. House of Representatives to investigate his own and other systems of shop management. Considering himself a reformer, he continued expounding the ideals and principles of his system of management until his death.