“Operations research has many precursors and allied fields, including Taylorism (after Frederick W. Taylor), scientific management and management science, industrial engineering and systems analysis. As one early textbook explained, the roots of OR "are as old as science and the management function. Its name dates back only to 1940" (Churchman et al. 1957: 3). Certainly its practitioners have expended much energy and ink in search of an acceptable definition of OR. Morse tried unsuccessfully to halt the debate by declaring OR to be 'the activity carried on by members of the Operations Research Society' (Morse 1953: 159) But his colleagues were not so easily dissuaded from debate. Much of the concern with definition focused on the sometimes elusive distinctions between OR and neighbouring fields; the attempt to define, or redefine, OR was also born of the desire to allow the subject to evolve beyond the orthodoxy of wartime experience. Crucial considerations included the balance between model and application, and the complexity of the mathematics involved.”

— Ivor Grattan-Guinness

Source: Companion encyclopedia of the history and philosophy of the mathematical sciences (2003), p. 841.

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Ivor Grattan-Guinness 8

Historian of mathematics and logic 1941–2014

C. West Churchman (1913–2004) American philosopher and systems scientist

Source: 1940s - 1950s, Introduction to Operations Research (1957), p. 3; Partly cited in: Ivor Grattan-Guinness (2003) Companion encyclopedia of the history and philosophy of the mathematical sciences, Vol 1. p. 841
Context: No science has ever been born on a specific day. Each science emerges out of a convergence of an increased interest in some class of problems and the development of scientific methods, techniques, and tools which are adequate to solve these problems. Operations Research (O. R.) is no exception. Its roots are as old as science and the management function. It's name dates back only to 1940.

“A number of engineers became so-called disciples of Frederick W. Taylor, even though he had passed on to his reward in 1915. A considerable number of engineers took up the so-called scientific management of Frederick Taylor and further embroidered it and publicized themselves as efficiency engineers and management consultants. Henry L. Gantt had been Taylor's assistant at the Midvale Steel and the Bethlehem Steel Company. Gant, were among the many prominent advocates of Taylor's efficiency system with some variations.
Gant, Barth and others tried to start an organization, ' 'The New Machine." ' 'The New Machine" never got off the ground; all of them wrote articles and delivered papers in the engineering societies and management conferences. But their chief purpose was in creating a national image so they could sell their services to large-scale private enterprise as scientific managers and efficiency engineers who would be able to install the system that could extract more productivity from the American worker.”

Howard Scott (1890–1970) American engineer

Source: History and Purpose of Technocracy, 1965, p. 7

“Frederick W. Taylor was the first man in recorded history who deemed work deserving of systematic observation and study. On Taylor's 'scientific management' rests, above all, the tremendous surge of affluence in the last seventy-five years which has lifted the working masses in the developed countries well above any level recorded before, even for the well-to-do. Taylor, though the Isaac Newton (or perhaps the Archimedes) of the science of work, laid only first foundations, however. Not much has been added to them since – even though he has been dead all of sixty years.”

Peter F. Drucker (1909–2005) American business consultant

Source: 1960s - 1980s, MANAGEMENT: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices (1973), Part 1, p. 181

“One of the hardest-to-down myths about the evolution of mass production at Ford is one which credits much of the accomplishment to 'scientific management.' No one at Ford—not Mr. Ford, Couzens, Flanders, Wills, Pete Martin, nor I—was acquainted with the theories of the 'father of scientific management,' Frederick W. Taylor. Years later I ran across a quotation from a two-volume book about Taylor by Frank Barkley Copley, who reports a visit Taylor made to Detroit late in 1914, nearly a year after the moving assembly line had been installed at our Highland Park plant. Taylor expressed surprise to find that Detroit industrialists 'had undertaken to install the principles of scientific management without the aid of experts.' To my mind this unconscious admission by an expert is expert testimony on the futility of too great reliance on experts and should forever dispose of the legend that Taylor's ideas had any influence at Ford.”

Charles E. Sorensen (1881–1968) American businessman

Source: My Forty Years with Ford, 1956, p. 41

“Decision theory can be pursued not only for the purposes of building foundations for political economy, or of understanding and explaining phenomena that are in themselves intrinsically interesting, but also for the purpose of offering direct advice to business and governmental decision makers. For reasons not clear to me, this territory was very sparsely settled prior to World War II. Such inhabitants as it had were mainly industrial engineers, students of public administration, and specialists in business functions, none of whom especially identified themselves with the economic sciences. Prominent pioneers included the mathematician, Charles Babbage, inventor of the digital computer, the engineer, Frederick Taylor and the administrator, Henri Fayol.
During World War II, this territory, almost abandoned, was rediscovered by scientists, mathematicians, and statisticians concerned with military management and logistics, and was renamed “operations research” or “operations analysis.””

Herbert A. Simon (1916–2001) American political scientist, economist, sociologist, and psychologist

So remote were the operations researchers from the social science community that economists wishing to enter the territory had to establish their own colony, which they called “management science”.
1960s-1970s, "Rational decision making in business organizations", Nobel Memorial Lecture 1978

“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

“Management of an industrial company must be giving targets to the engineers constantly; that may be the most important job management has in dealing with its engineers.”

Akio Morita (1921–1999) Japanese businessman

Source: Made in Japan (1986), p. 168.

“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. (1868–1924) American industrial engineer

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

“The Chairman: Mr. Taylor, do you believe that any system of scientific management induced by a desire for greater profits would revolutionize the minds of the employers to such an extent that they would immediately, voluntarily and generally enforce the golden rule.?
Mr. Taylor: If they had any sense, they would.”

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

Source: Testimony of Frederick W. Taylor... 1912, p. 148 ; Cited in: Frank Barkley Copley. Frederick W. Taylor, father of scientific management https://archive.org/stream/frederickwtaylor01copl#page/n5/mode/2up. Published 1923. p. ii.

“Fifteen years ago Follett expounded a philosophy of management that even to-day is a generation ahead of practice, and one can find therein a significant parallel with the pioneering work of Frederick W. Taylor. In his teaching, the adoption of a new philosophy of management—“the mental revolution” as he put it—was a fundamental part of his new technique; but, as knowledge of his methods spread, the practice of scientific management was allowed to develop and expand shorn from its underlying philosophy. Mary Follett was not concerned merely with the technique, the methods of management; her contacts with business and its leaders gave her ample chance of seeing the new technique emerge and grow. But with deeper insight she could see what too many business leaders missed, that the philosophy of management and its psychological foundations were still unheeded, perhaps even unknown. In this lies the greatness of her contribution. It is as modern and applicable to-day as it was when first she spoke; it will be as modern and applicable tomorrow.”

Henry C. Metcalf (1867–1942) American business theorist

Source: Dynamic administration, 1942, p. xxvii

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