Late 19th/Early 20th Century · Scientific Management, Industrial Engineering
Frederick Winslow Taylor (1856-1915) was an American mechanical engineer and management consultant, widely regarded as the father of scientific management. He pioneered systematic studies of work processes to improve industrial efficiency, most famously through time-motion studies at Midvale Steel and Bethlehem Steel. His principles of scientific management, detailed in his 1911 monograph, sought to replace rule-of-thumb methods with scientifically determined best practices, fundamentally shaping 20th-century industrial engineering and organizational theory.