Re: PDSA, Taylor, Shewhart and Deming

[Marie-Louise Thorsén Lind <marie-louise@thorsen-lind.se>]

Hello all
Regarding the discussion about Taylor, Shewhart and Deming I too think that
there are some things that should not be forgotten.

I wouldn't dispute the fact that Frederick Winslow Taylor was a talented
person who made a valuable contribution to the early Industrial Society. But
the fact is also that Taylor was not a scientist. Shewhart, however, was a
scientist. So was Deming. 

Most of Taylor's contemporary partners were also not scientists. They were
pragmatic hands-on-experts. A well known exception is dr. Lillian Gilbreth
who was married to one of Taylor's most valued partners. After her husband's
early death she became a professor in psychology and ergonomics. 

Taylor's expert is (in Taylor 1911) more of a practitioner of "best
practice" than a practitioner of scientific method. And the term "scientific
management" seems to have been chosen by Taylor and his partners in a
discussion about how they were to market the method.

Peter Drucker has said that Taylor's major contribution was to show
scientists that work is a relevant subject for scientific study. Taylor's
method (or was it Adam Smith who created it?) was also a valuable
contribution. It gave scientists such as Shewhart and Deming someplace to
start. 

To my mind one of the more remarkable differences between Taylor, Shewhart
and Deming is that Shewhart and Deming did not only apply scientific theory
and scientific method to the workplace. They also suggested that the worker
should use it. And that would be virtually impossible in the Taylor method. 

This of course means that dr. Deming could have chosen the term scientific
management for his management philosophy. But then one would have to
consider that when Deming wrote his books on management the term was not
only considered to be worn-out. It was not really respectable anymore.... at
least not in my country, which is Sweden     

      
Marie-Louise Thorsén Lind
Psychologist
Researcher on management for quality
Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm
marie-louise@thorsen-lind.se or marie-louise.thorsen-lind@ki.se