Ford and Taylorism
Section 1: Key Ideas
Long time ago, manufacturings was not as easy as today. Actually, long time ago it was not as complex as today. It has only one thing in mind, “to get the job done”. Until Henry Ford influenced by Frederic Taylor invented Mass Production System.
Through Mass Production, production costs were cut down significantly, and productivity increased up to several thousands of percent. This was proven by the fact that long time ago, building a car would take up to several weeks, and using this breakthrough, Ford was able to make car production up to 1,5 hours per unit. Cars were made available to a wider class, not only for the high class. And using this, Ford was able to earn more profit and was kind enough to share his profit to the employees.
One of the thing outlined in Ford 's style is that you work hard, you get paid high. However, from the video, we can see that the hardship can be considered very high as it was complex and forced the employees to work nearly non-stop, this is due to that in actuality, the assembly line is a way used to increase labour productivity (Edwards, 1979, pp.112-113 as cited in Prujit, 2000, p.2).
1. Would workers in Australia, America or Europe accept the Taylorism in this form today?
Answer:
Ford and Taylorism has been replaced or at least being used collaboratively with Toyota Production System in the past few decades, this is due to that Taylorism does not really see the human resources as asset (Liker, 2004. p.145), and that is why workers might not really accept Ford and Taylorism anymore.
2. Consider the design of scripts for use in Call Centres; can you see Taylorism in that? Explain.
Answer:
Ford and Taylorism also connected closely with call centres. Hingst (2006, pp. 2-8) stated that call centres are identical with a prison with monitoring computers and strict rules of service ethics. Call centres also regulates how the call receptionist should act and control their emotion. The nearly non-stop call environment is similar to that of an assembly line, where a great productivity is highly required. And this also includes the script of the call centre, the very words they need to say to the customers based on the standardized rules and regulations.
3. This ‘clip’ is showing history from 100 years ago. Some would say that ‘the world has moved on’ and these ideas are out of date. However, could there be parts of the world today for which these ideas might be just what they need? Explain.
Answer:
However, it is not actually out of date. Ford and Taylorism still can be used, as they have been proven to increase the labour productivity, and mass production is widely used in America and Europe. However, the system should be made more flexible and not pushing the labour to work in a stressful environment. Ford and Taylorism can be as successful as Toyota if they adopt more philosophies such as Respect for People (Liker, 2004, p. 188), and additionally Fayolism.
Section 2: Ideas to Experience
Mass Production in Ford and Taylorism is identical with the way we make something in bulk. With Ford and Taylorism, they stated that mass production is cheaper. The same goes for us when we make cookies. We always try to make as much cookies as we can in one tray to lower the cost of cooking, but we also try to standardize the output, and this is identical with Ford and Taylorism.
Fayolism and Taylorism
Section 1: Key Ideas
One of the downside of Fayolism is that it nearly never went out of Europe. Hardly we can find Americans who learned about Fayolism and adopted these theories (as a proof, Fayolism rarely gets cited in scholarly articles).
While Taylorism is about technical and working labours, Fayolism is about the higher management and administration. It really is identical with hard skills and soft skills. Stated by Fayol (as cited in Pearson, 1945, p. 78), a higher position will require administration skills, that is also true for the requirements of soft skills in a higher managerial position (Gillard, 2009, p. 725).
1. While some would argue that this paper, now 70 years beyond its publication date is ‘out of date’, could there still be value in the ideas expressed here in other parts of the world?
Answer:
Administrative tasks have also been introduced in many Leadership articles (Telly, 1998 p. 194). Thus, even when we stated that some disagree on Fayolism, his teachings are also a common sense in organizations as it is described in many forms. It might not be really outdated, it is just getting improvements like all other theories.
Section 2: Ideas to Experience
I know that in working environment, hard skills alone are not enough. We need to have soft skills. This is true to Fayolism, where in higher levels we need administrative skills (identical to soft skills), and in lower levels technical skills are important (hard skills). Administrative skills are also identical with management skills. We need to understand not only the hard skills, but also the way to manage and also interpersonal skills.
Linear Programming World Problem
Section 1: Key Ideas
Linear Programming is a very useful tool to maximize or minimze the functions based on the linear constraints (Ferguson, 1958, p. 3). Linear Programming is the most rational decision making tools as it will get the highest profit (lowest cost) in a system by taking into account all aspects we want to be fulfilled (so long as it is feasible).
Linear Programming also provides several solutions based on the constraints, and even though not all of these solutions are the most optimum, it can serve as alternatives to consider in decision-making processes.
1. What insights into rational decision making approach can you draw from this video?
Answer:
Upon watching this video, we learn that almost everything can be solved mathematically. The video itself shows the optimization of a feeding process, but naturally, we always use Linear Programming without even thinking.
When we buy grocers, we always try to separate our budgeting, trying to get the most out of our budget, and that is just the core of Linear Programming, to get the most value out of a system.
2. What would be the limitations of linear programming?
Answer:
Linear Programming has limitations. It is as the name implies, Linear. For a far more complex problems, not all constraints are linear. And changes can happen at any time.
In real life, i.e. manufacturing, the highest profit will be achieved based on the demand, not only from the allocation of resources which the video shows. If following the allocation of resources, it might not follow the actual demand and more of a push system.
Linear programming might not be able to be used in a Pull system production. This is due to the fact that pull allocates production from the last point of contact, not from above, thus production managers can not really allocates production using Linear Programming to maximize profit. However, Production Managers can use Linear Programming to assign people to job, getting combination of materials with lowest cost possible, in Supply Chain, and many other things.
3. In what kinds of situation could the linear programming be useful to decision making?
Answer:
Even though Linear Programming has many limitations, we can still use it in many problems, such as Transportation Problems, Diet scenario, Activity analysis, assignment, queuing, and many other things(Ferguson, 1958, pp. 4-8; Kolesar, Rider, Crabill, and Walker, 1975, p. 1045).
Section 2: Ideas to Experience
As stated above, when we buy grocers, we allocate our budget. We always want to get the maximum out of our budget. Sometimes something changed our decision making process, such as discounted items, bundling, etc. We also keep in mind that we need some certain numbers of item, like 2 packs of cereals, 3 bottles of milk, etc. They can be considered constraints in within an objective function (that is to get the maximum, or use the minimum budget). And with the use of linear programming, we can get a better result than just a normally allocated grocer shopping.
References
Ferguson, R. O., & Sargent, L. F. (1958). Linear programming. McGraw-Hill. [Online] Available at: http://www.math.ucla.edu/~tom/LP.pdf [Accessed 12 December 2014].
Gillard, S. (2009). Soft skills and technical expertise of effective project managers. Issues in Informing Science and Information Technology, [Online]. 6(2009), 723-729. Available at: http://iisit.org/Vol6/IISITv6p723-729Gillard599.pdf [Accessed 10 December 2014].
Jeffrey Liker, 2004. The Toyota Way: 14 Management Principles from the World's Greatest Manufacturer. 1 Edition. McGraw-Hill.
Kolesar, P. J., Rider, K. L., Crabill, T. B., & Walker, W. E. (1975). A queuing-linear programming approach to scheduling police patrol cars. Operations Research, [Online]. 23(6), 1045-1062. Abstract only. Available at: http://pubsonline.informs.org/doi/abs/10.1287/opre.23.6.1045 [Accessed 12 December 2014].
Hingst, R. D. (2006). Perceptions of working life in call centres. Journal of Management Practice, [Online]. 7(1), 1-9. Available at: http://globadvantage.ipleiria.pt/files/2011/09/working_paper-81_globadvantage.pdf [Accessed 9 December 2014].
Pearson, N. M. (1945). Fayolism as the necessary complement of Taylorism. American Political Science Review, [Online]. 39(01), 68-80. Available at: www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/1948832uid=3737536&uid=2&uid=4&sid=21103317946303 [Accessed 10 December 2014].
Prujit, H, 2000. Repainting, Modifying, Smashing Taylorism. Journal of Organizational Change Management, [Online]. 13(5), 1-12. Available at: http://m.truty.org/PDFs/Management/RepaintingModifyingSmashingTaylorism.pdf [Accessed 9 December 2014].
Terry, L. D. (1998). Administrative leadership, neo-managerialism, and the public management movement. Public Administration Review, [Online] 194-200. Abstract only. Available at: http://www.jstor.org/stable/976559 [Accessed 10 December 2014].
