Frederick Winslow Taylor’s Scientific Management Principles Birthed Modern-Day Industrial Engineering
Stevens Mechanical Engineering graduate increased efficiency in the workplace, butted heads with labor unions
A well-educated and promising student, Frederick Winslow Taylor seemed ticketed for Harvard University. He passed the entrance exam in 1874, but poor eyesight set him on a different path that would include Stevens Institute of Technology along the way.
Due to his deteriorating eyesight, Taylor took up work in various machinist roles, gaining key insights to how work was done on the factory floor. Quickly moving up the ranks, Taylor landed at Midvale Steel Works as a machine-shop laborer in 1878. At Midvale, Taylor’s quick ascension provided him a firsthand view of the factory floor, and created the seeds of curiosity into how he imagined factory labor could be done in a much more efficient manner.
While working various laborer roles at Midvale, Taylor observed that workers didn’t seem to necessarily be working as efficiently as they could be, which resulted in higher labor costs for the company. In the early 1880s, Taylor started to analyze the effectiveness of both the workforce and the machinery it employed. This scientific application toward human production represented a new frontier in engineering, which Taylor labeled scientific management.
During this time, Taylor was also seeking the high-level college education he eschewed at Harvard years earlier. After working at Midvale during the day, Taylor worked toward a Mechanical Engineering degree at Stevens at night via correspondence. He obtained his bachelor’s degree in 1883.
Creating a Field of Study in His Name
Taylor’s notion of scientific management envisioned a workforce guided by four core principles:
Replacing old work methods with new methods resulting from scientific observation of each laborer’s individual tasks.
Providing detailed training specific to each employee as opposed to letting everyone fend for themselves.
Increased supervision of workers’ performance by management-level personnel.
Dividing work equally among laborers and managers so managers could use science-based observation to make decisions while workers focused on their specific tasks.
Taylor’s new methodology required significant buy-in from management. To apply scientific management to the labor force, they would be instrumental in effecting change and creating more efficient practices among the workforce. Specifically, Taylor envisioned hiring labor whose skills effectively matched the tasks. For example, physically strong workers made more sense for roles that required heavy lifting. He believed in paying good workers for good work as opposed to paying based on job title.
A century and a half later, Taylor’s notion of scientific management, to this day also referenced as “Taylorism,” guides the thinking of many companies. The ability to mass produce items helped turn the U.S. into an industrial behemoth, and the battle between management and labor endures.
"As a mechanical engineer, Frederick Winslow Taylor revolutionized modern manufacturing by transforming the art of work into a science, laying the foundation for efficiency, precision and productivity that continue to shape lean manufacturing and just-in-time strategies of today," said Souran Manoochehri, professor and chair of Mechanical Engineering at Stevens.
Taylor’s Second Act
Taylor’s scientific management ideas started to take root nationwide and he left Midvale to tout the benefits of scientific management as a self-described “consulting engineer.” He opened his own consulting practice in 1893, perfecting his management system. His first publication about the subject “A Piece Rate System” was presented to the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) in 1895.
From there, he was brought on by industrial titan Bethlehem Steel in 1898 to solve multiple efficiency and financial issues for the company. During this consultation, he created a patent that would lead to his greatest financial success. One of many patents he would earn, the most lucrative involved the use of tungsten alloyed steel in the machine-cutting process. This method could quadruple cutting speeds. For this patent, he received $100,000 or approximately $4 million in 2025 money.
Now financially secure, Taylor returned to espousing the virtues of his management ethos through lectures, written materials and additional consulting services. In 1906, he was elected president of ASME. He would later become a professor in the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. He died of pneumonia a day after turning 59 in March 1915. But his revolutionary ideas of applying scientific principles to work itself still endure on a global scale.