Section B Flashcards
2 people for Scientific Management
Frederick Taylor
The Gilbreths
What are the foundations of management
The two perspectives of scientific management and classical
Clssical perspective
Arose as large scale production began growing
Professional salaried manager was born
Treats workers like parts of a machine - cog in machine metaphor
Not humanistic focused
What was the general approach to Scientific Management
Specific method of the classical perspective
Start of HR - trying to get the best outcomes
Intristic motivation driven by reward - wages etc
All responsibility to manager
Best methods and person to perform the job
Training to be effective
Planning work and eliminating interruptions
Monitoring performance
Who is the father of scientific management
Frederick W Taylor
Information on Frederick W Taylor + his experiment
He was appalled by worker inefficiencies - thought well ahead of others in his time
Involved in the famous Pig-Iron experiment
Noticed their work was not co-ordinated or at the best possible standard
To fix this he: asked them to do in a certain way, good equipment, breaks, wage increase, only hiring physically able people
Result was that productivity/ output was increased by 400%
What did Frank and Lillian do
Expanded on scientific management by studying motion and time to make work better
3 parts:
1. Reduce wasteful motions
2. Focus on most efficient way possible
3. Increased efficiency to increase profit and worker satisfaction
What was the outcomes of Frank and Lillians research
Reduced time to complete tasks
Improved time patients spent in surgery
Saved lives
Reduced the strain and fatigue of employees
Eg’s of standardised work practices (Sci management) today
McDonalds - very standardised
Production lines - Henry Ford
Piece Rates - get paid on how much they produce
What were some criticisims of Taylorisim (Fredericks methods)
Did not appreciate the social context of work and the higher needs of workers
Did not aknowledge diversity
Tended to regard workers as uninformed - the manager was perceived as the best.
Person for Beurocratic Organisations + info
Max Weber
Came up with the ideal bureaucracy
Emphasised management on an impersonal, rational basis at the organisational level
6 elements on Webers Ideal Bureaucracy
Division of labour
Hierarchy of positions of authority
Managers not above
Management seperate from the ownership of the orginisation
All recorded in writing - not behind closed doors
Employees selected based on skills but also opportunity to train
What does Bureaucracy look like today
Seen to some extent in all orginisations
Larger in public sector
Who was the father or modern operations management + info
Henri Fayol
French management specialist
What are Fayol’s basic management principles
Foresight/ planning
Organisation
Command/ leading
Co-ordination
Control
What are another 4 out of the 14 Fayol Principles
Unity of Command - each subordinate recieves orders from one superior
Division of work - specialisation to produce more and better quality - specialise in one area
Unity of direction - similar activities in an organisation should be ground under one manager
Scalar Chain - all employees included in the chain of command
What perspective is the complete contrast to Taylorisim
Humanistic Perspective
Emphasis on human factor - care about employees
What is theory x and y
X = human race is lazy and we do the minimum so we need money as a motivator for all
Y = there is something more to us all, we crave social interaction and not neceserily money motivation - we do need it but its not a primary reinforcer
What is behavioural sciences
Understanding people (how they think, feel, act)
Instead of just focusing on tasks, behavioural sciences use ideas from psychology, sociology etc to understand employees and maximise them.
What is management science
Using numbers to find solutions/ methods that are best - instead of relying on intuition or tradition.
Links to Rosseau’s evidence based management.
Systems thinking
Comes from Humanistic perspective
A series of loops which tend to be linked together - need to understand the whole system
Contingency view
Accepting thart one approach based on one context is not going to fit everywhere else in the same way
- All compannies are different
- Management strategies need to be suited to diversity
Strategic management is…
Planning long term goals and then setting up plans/ decisions to reach them.
Thinking strategically involves…
Taking long term view of business
Seeing the big picture
Looking at fit between organisation and envrionment
3 levels of strategic management/ thinking - in order
- Corporate level strategy
- Business level strategy
- Functional level strategy
What is each strategy (corporate, business and functional level)
Corporate = the overall direction and scope of the organisation
Business = how the companny competes within a specific market/ industry
Functional = more specific, focuses on optimising operations within individual departments like HR etc - TO SUPPORT business level
What does each involve - examples
Corporate = overall growth, mergers, markets to enter etc
Business = pricing, product
Functional = finance, marketing, HR
All 3 strategic levels of strategy need to…
Work together in synergy
What is operations management
Ensuring that a business runs smoothly everyday by managing things like schedules, resources, teamwork etc.
…to achieve the strategic management
Operations strategy
= a plan that outlines how a business will manage itself to achieve its goals
Through doing things like how to train employees, scheduleing shifts etc.
2 factors of setting objectives
External market requirements - what the market wants (eg; low price, high quality)
Internal competitive response - what has to be done internally to achieve it (eg; speed).
Organisation structure is about…
chosing who does what job, in what sort of groupings and relationships, to best achieve the goals of the organisation
- How resources are organised
The organisation chart
Shows the main parts of the organisation and their relationships
AND the chain of command - who has authority over who and what the channels of communication are
What is departmentalisation + 4 types
How the companny organises its employees into different groups
- Functional
- Divisional
- Hybrid
- Matrix
Functional departmentalisation structure + what orginisation it is good for
Type of departmentalisation where positions are grouped into their job functions - people are grouped by what they do
The simpliest structure
Good for large organisations in terms of problem solving, efficient use of resources, becoming experts etc.
BUT there is a big issue in communication - creates ‘silos’ as people only work on their area
Divisional departmentalisation structure + benefits and negatives
Seperated by what they work on - departments made based on products etc
Positions are grouped according to similarity of products, services or markets
Good for: focus on customers, fast response/ flexibility
Bad for: resource management - often duplicated
Hybrid departmentalisation
Combines the two
Might have functional departments like marketing and then also have divisions for different products
- Gets the benefits of both
Matrix departmentalisation structure + benefits and negatives
Trying to get the benefits of both functional and divisional structure - both elements to it
Have more than one authority to report to - eg; a head of HR and the manager of a prouct they are working on
Combines - eg; one authority for the functional area (functional) and then another for their project or product team (divisional)
Good for: collaboration, more efficient use of resources, flexible
Bad for: confusion & conflict between two sides of matrix - slow down decision making
Process =
Value =
= a change process - something transforming the nature of something
A set of activities linked together to deliver value
= when the change is made, it has acheived something of value for the customer
Porters value chain
Steps to create value for customers
Helps businesses to analyze the activities they perform individually and how to maximise them for customer value
Primary processes:
New product –> inbound logistics –> marketing and sales –> operations –> distribution –> after sales service
+
Seccondary processes which are needed to keep the primary processes running: finance, accounting, HR etc.
Taking a systems view =
Looking at how ALL of the bits of the system work together
Having a zoom lense which can zoom in on something or zoom out and see whole picture
Machine metaphor
The work is routine and repetitive
The employees are cogs in the machine - a small part of a big machine
What are socio-technical systems
The interaction of any technical equipment with people in the organisation - humans coming into contact with the system or equipment
Systems thinking requires we look at….and….systems
Hard and soft systems
Hard systems
Clear and specific problems which can be solved using data and analysis
A definite answer
Eg; if a factory needs to improve production, a hard systems approach would use data to find the best machines
Soft systems
Focus more on complex problems that invovle people and their feelings
More flexible with not one definite solution
Eg; improving teamwork
How do you optimise human performance alongside technology
Mistake proofing
- Role of tech with humans is very large and there needs to be prevention of humans making mistakes - we are not perfect
Eg; wall switches
Taylorisim
Still influences managers thinking to this day
First person to say the manager is in charge
What is the theoretical model for variety and volume axis
The higher the volume, the less variety you want
The lower the volume, the more variety you want
Operations management
Input resources
1. Operations strategy
2. Designing or planning what the operation is going to be
3. Make sure that the plan we put together actually happens
4. Always try to improve
Output products and services
To customers
