The Principles of Scientific Management.

TAYLOR, Frederick Winslow.

Item Number: 99839

New York and London: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1911.

First edition of Taylor’s classic treatise on standard labor efficiency, preceded only by the privately distributed edition of the same year. Octavo, original red cloth with gilt titles to the spine and front panel. In good condition with wear to the extremities.

"F. W. Taylor, an engineer in the Bethlehem Steel Works in Philadelphia, was the originator of what he called 'scientific management', now known as 'time and motion study'. His system was based on what he estimated to be a fair day's work and the best means of ensuring such a standard of production. He was interested in any factor that hindered or helped in attaining this end, and besides studying factory conditions and methods in great detail he was responsible for fundamental changes in machinery and machine tools. The main lines of approach to increased efficiency were standardising processes and machines, time and motion study, and payment by results, all of which have been welcomed in the USSR, where 'Stakhanovism' is virtually 'Taylorism' renamed, and in Germany, where the Principles was translated and achieved a wide circulation (31,000 copies sold by 1922). The adoption of his methods there contributed notably to the speedy recovery of German production after the First World War. His methods were anathema to trade unionists almost everywhere else" (PMM).