Henry L. Gantt (1861-1919)

Henry Gantt who was an associate of Taylor developed the Gantt Chart - a device for scheduling work after a span of time. Gantt also developed the bonus system of paying workers. Both the Gantt Chart and the bonus system of paying workers are in use in todays complex organizations.

Limitations of Scientific Management

•    During Tayor’s time, the mental revolution he advocated rarely came about and often increased productivity and led to layoffs.
•    It assumed people were rational and therefore motivated only by material gains. Taylor and his followers overlooked the social needs of workers.
•    They assumed that one had only to tell workers what to do to increase their earnings and they would do it. But people have a need for other things other than money e.g. recognition
•    They also overlooked the human desire for job satisfaction and workers became more willing to go out on strike over job conditions than salary.

So the scientific model of the worker as a rational being interested only in higher wages became increasingly inappropriate as time went on and employer and labourers got increasingly dissatisfied with it.

An evaluation of scientific management indicates that scientific management was developed to achieve two objectives to increase workers' productivity and to improve workers' economic welfare. The first objective was achieved because the methods of scientific management such as time and motion, piece rate incentives, Gantt Chart and production standardization were accepted by industries. The second objective was however not fully achieved. Managers used scientific management to improve workers' productivity but they often did not see the benefits. Productivity often led to layoffs or changes in piece rates, so that workers had to produce more for the same income. The enthusiasm for scientific management ended around 1930.