“There is some confusion today as to the meaning of scientific management. This concerns itself with the nature of such management itself, with the scope or field to which such management applies, and with the aims that it desires to attain. Scientific management is simply management that is based upon actual measurement. Its skilful application is an art that must be acquired, but its fundamental principles have the exactness of scientific laws which are open to study by everyone. We have here nothing hidden or occult or secret, like the working practices of an old-time craft; we have here a science that is the result of accurately recorded, exact investigation.”

—  Frank Bunker Gilbreth, Sr.

Source: Applied Motion Study (1917), p. 3.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "There is some confusion today as to the meaning of scientific management. This concerns itself with the nature of such …" by Frank Bunker Gilbreth, Sr.?
Frank Bunker Gilbreth, Sr. photo
Frank Bunker Gilbreth, Sr.19
American industrial engineer 1868–1924

Related quotes

Frank Bunker Gilbreth, Sr. photo

“The greatest misunderstandings occur as to the aims of scientific management. Its fundamental aim is the elimination of waste, the attainment of worth-while desired results with the least necessary amount of time and effort. Scientific management may, and often does, result in expansion, but its primary aim is conservation and savings, making an adequate use of every ounce of energy of any type that is expended.”

Frank Bunker Gilbreth, Sr. (1868–1924) American industrial engineer

Source: Applied Motion Study (1917), p. 4.

Frederick Winslow Taylor photo

“Broadly speaking, then, the best type of management in ordinary use may be defined as management in which the workmen give their best initiative and in return receive some special incentive from their employers. This type of management will be referred to as the management of “initiative and incentive” in contradistinction to scientific management, or task management, with which it is to be compared.”

Frederick Winslow Taylor (1856–1915) American mechanical engineer and tennis player

Source: Principles of Scientific Management, 1911, p. 87 (2014 ed.).

“Cybernetics is still headline news, and increasingly we hear about its applications to new fields of scientific and industrial endeavour. Stafford Beer's new book Cybernetics and Management is an admirable account on the relation that exist between cybernetics and the problems of management in industry [and]… covers a range of applications that have not previously been dealt with in print.”

Frank Honywill George (1921–1997) British psychologist

George (1960) " Automatic controls in industry http://books.google.nl/books?id=ca1QDXCpElgC&pg=PA48" in: New Scientist. 7 jan 1960. p.48

“Management is not people, it is an activity like walking, reading, swimming or running. People who perform management can be designated as managers members of management, or executive leaders.
In addition, management is a distinct activity. It can be studied, knowledge about it obtained, and skill in its application acquired.”

George R. Terry (1909–1979)

Source: Principles of Management, 1960, p. 6 (6th ed. 1971)

“Perhaps most important of the theoretical movements now influencing American administrative study is scientific management. At the level of technique or procedure, borrowing from and liaison with scientific management will undoubtedly continue. Although some doctrines, such as "pure theory of organization," have already affected public administration, how influential other theoretical aspects of scientific management will be remains to be seen. In its "democratic" or "anarchistic" doctrines, conceivably, there is enough force to reconstruct present patterns of administrative thought, at least if conditions become favorable.”

Dwight Waldo (1913–2000) American political scientist

Source: The Administrative State, 1948, p. 209

Frank Bunker Gilbreth, Sr. photo

“A better name for scientific management is "measured functional management." It is not sufficient to call it " labor saving 'management " for it deals with more than labor and labor saving. It is a way for obtaining methods of least waste. It not only saves useless labor, but it improves labor conditions; improves quality of product; prolongs the period of the worker's productivity; conserves, teaches and transfers skill and experience. The committee have caused the Society and the world to recognize at last the importance of the feature of the transference of skill, but they apparently still lack appreciation of the even greater feature of the recording and transference of experience of Mr. Taylor's measured functional management and of micro-motion study. Mr. Taylor's system is best described in his writings entitled A Piece Kate System, Shop Management, and On the Art of Cutting Metals, published by the Society, and Principles of Scientific Management, published by Harper & Brothers.”

Frank Bunker Gilbreth, Sr. (1868–1924) American industrial engineer

Source: The present state of art of industrial management, 1913, p. 1224

Frederick Winslow Taylor photo

“What I want to try to prove to you and make clear to you is that the principles of scientific management when properly applied, and when a sufficient amount of time has been given to make them really effective, must in all cases produce far large and better results, both for the employer and the employees, than can possibly be obtained under even this very rare type of management which I have been outlining, namely, the management of ‘initiative and incentive’, in which those on the management’s side deliberately give a very large incentive to their workmen, and in return the workmen respond by working to the very best of their ability at all times in the interest of their employers. I want to show you that scientific management is even far better than this rare type of management.”

Frederick Winslow Taylor (1856–1915) American mechanical engineer and tennis player

Source: Testimony of Frederick W. Taylor... 1912, p. 107.

“This book undertakes the study of management by utilizing analysis of the basic managerial functions as a framework for organizing knowledge and techniques in the field. Managing is defined here as the creation and maintenance of an internal environment in an enterprise where individuals, working together in groups, can perform efficiently and effectively towards the attainment of group goals. Managing could, then, be called ""performance environment design."" Essentially, managing is the art of doing, and management is the body of organized knowledge which underlies the art.
Each of the managerial functions is analyzed and described in a systematic way. As this is done, both the distilled experience of practicing managers and the findings of scholars are presented., This is approached in such a way that the reader may grasp the relationships between each of the functions, obtain a clear view of the major principles underlying them, and be given the means of organizing existing knowledge in the field.
Part 1 is an introduction to the basis of management through a study of the nature and operation of management principles (Chapter 1), a description of the various schools and approaches of management theory (Chapter 2), the functions of the manager (Chapter 3), an analytical inquiry into the total environment in which a manager must work (Chapter 4), and an introduction to comparative management in which approaches are presented for separating external environmental forces and nonmanagerial enterprise functions from purely managerial knowledge (Chapter 5)…”

Harold Koontz (1909–1984)

Source: Principles of management, 1968, p. 1 (1972 edition)

“Scientific management consists in correct interpretation of phenomena, in exact knowledge of laws, principle and the influence of conditions upon results: and in the skilled use of methods adapted to the almost infinitely varying circumstances of individual cases
- Engineering magazine”

Herbert N. Casson (1869–1951) Canadian journalist and writer

Source: 1910s, Ads and Sales (1911), p. 2

“[Messianic tendencies of management thought, especially scientific management had the tendency] to extend the objective, positivist approach to an ever-enlarging complex of phenomena.”

Dwight Waldo (1913–2000) American political scientist

Source: The Administrative State, 1948, p. 57 as cited in: Robert B. Denhardt, ‎Thomas J. Catlaw (2014), Theories of Public Organization, p. 72

Related topics