Page 588 - Introduction to Business

562 PART 6 Managing Business Operations, Management Information Systems, and the Digital Enterprise

products had been replaced by the factory system, but vast improvements to facto-
ries were yet to come.
The scientific management movement brought widespread changes to the man-
agement of factories. The movement was led by an efficiency engineer and inven-
tor, Frederick Taylor, who is referred to as the father of scientific management. Taylor
believed in a science of management based on the analysis and improvement of
work methods and on economic incentives. He studied work methods in great
detail to identify the best method for performing each job. Taylor believed that sci-
entific laws govern the maximum daily output of a worker, that it is management’s
job to discover and use these laws for planning the operation of a production sys-
tem, and that it is the worker’s job to execute management’s plan without any
worker input. Besides Taylor, there were other pioneers that contributed to the sci-
entific management era. Frank Gilbreth developed motion studies, Lillian Gilbreth
(Frank’s wife) performed fatigue studies, and Henry Gantt created a scheduling
chart called the Gantt chart. Of special interest, Taylor, a devout Quaker, requested
“cussing lessons” from an earthy foreman to help him communicate with workers;
Frank Gilbreth defeated younger champion bricklayers in bricklaying contests by
using his own principles of motion economy; and Gantt won a presidential citation
for his application of the Gantt chart to shipbuilding during World War I. 2
In 1913, Henry Ford designed his Model T Ford to be produced on an assembly
line, where men stood still while the car moved. The assembly line concept com-
bined two key elements: interchangeable parts and division of labor. Before the
assembly line was introduced in August of 1913, each auto chassis was assembled
by one worker in about 12.5 hours. After the assembly line was in its final form, with
each worker performing a small unit of work and the chassis being moved mechan-
ically, the average labor time per chassis was reduced to 93 minutes. It has been said
that all Models T were painted black because black paint dried the fastest. Besides
achieving great success with his assembly line, Ford popularized assembly lines as

Assembly line in 1932 at the Ford
Motor Company plant in Dearborn,
Michigan.

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