Burger King vs Scientific Management free essay sample

Scientific management is a theory that indicates each worker should be trained in one specialized part only to simplify the jobs so they could perform at their best ability in order to increase productivity. After years of experiment and examining in the field of management, Taylor proposed four principles of scientific management. Internet centre of management and business administration, inc (2002-2007)) state that the first principle of scientific developed by Taylor was to replace rule –of-thumb work methods with methods based on a scientific study of the task. This showed that introducing scientific management which each man doing only one specialized part, quickly replace the old method. Second principle is to scientifically select, train and develop each worker rather than passively leaving them to train themselves (Internet centre of management and business administration, inc (2002-2007)). This means rather than leaving the worker to chose his own job and train themselves to their best abilities, instead, we could instruct them to their jobs. Third point was to cooperate with the workers to ensure that the scientifically developed methods are being followed. (Internet centre of management and business administration, inc (2002-2007)) This point suggested that workers will be cooperating with each other to make the best out of â€Å"the each worker specialized in one area† method. The last principle was to divide equally between managers and workers. So the managers apply scientific management principles and the workers actually perform the task. (Internet centre of management and business administration, inc (2002-2007)) By doing this will actually achieve the best result of scientific management as each manager has their own part to control and will increase productivity. From the above information we already know what is scientific and how it applies to business. The first principle of replace rule-of-thumb work methods with scientific management, Burger King has done well in this section. The old method was to leave every worker to do all their trainings through working. They do not specialize the areas of their work and was lack of cooperation. The old method really wasted resources and decreased productivities. By introducing scientific management to Burger King, each worker has their own special area of work to do and provide trainings to them before they actually work. This helps the workers to get familiar with their work before they actually do the job. This saves a lot of resources as workers are trained professionals and increases productivities a lot. Compare the information above with Burger King, they had well managed their crew and train each one of their crews to perform best of their ability. Each crew before joining the working team will be trained in one specific area that they applied for. For example, a crew member before joining the team applied for a job at the front counter taking orders. The Burger King training manager will train this member for what he has to do and this refers to the principle that workers are trained specifically. This will increase their productivity as the worker was well trained in their position and will perform best to their abilities in order to achieve scientific management theories. Based on the explanations of scientific management, Burger King has put it well in practice. In New Zealand, Burger King has a head quarters in each city that has a Burger King restaurant. This head quarter manages each and every one of the BK restaurant in the city. They give orders to restaurant in their control area when to promote their newest product, when and how to pay their employees, regularly checking the quality of their product in each restaurant and each restaurant will perform the orders given to improve their productivities. Inside each restaurant, there is a store manager who will take the orders from the head quarter and deliver it to the members in the store. From there, each manager in each specialized area will perform the order given. For example, the store manager set a order for the closing manager tonight to clean all the walls and windows, the closing manager will take this order and deliver it to the crew who is working on his shift. He will give each one of them a specialized job to do to increase productivity. Also every crew in the restaurant have their specialized part of the job. For example: there are crews making burgers, some crews are taking orders, some are washing dishes and some will clean the restaurant dining area. This well illustrates the principle of divide equally between managers and workers so the managers can apply scientific management to the workers at their control. Burger King also applied the principle of cooperating with the workers so the scientific management theory are being followed. Everyday, there will be managers cooperating with crews at all times. This not only will help to increase productivities as the managers can give orders to crews to do the need but also it can improve the relationship between managers and the workers. For example, when a crew member was taking order, the manager who was on shift will usually help him to run the order to save time to achieve efficiency. Also when making burgers, there will be two boards, one side making all the chicken burgers and one side making all the beef burgers. This specializes the workers as each side only makes similar kind of burgers. Also there will be two people on each side of the board. One will heat the bread and prepare all the ingredient needed for the burger and the other person will put everything together and wrap the burgers. This reflects the cooperating with each other to achieve greater productivity. Although scientific management improved productivity, but the lack of communication between workers will lead to disagreement and conflict between managers and workers. Because under the structure of scientific management, workers will often feel being used by the employers. Because they have to repeat the same kind of jobs everyday and they have no freedom in changing their role as the training has already taken in place. Extra training will cost the employers and employers will think what they have got right now is good enough and changing a person to a new field will just be an waste of resources. In conclusion, scientific management which was widely used in all kind of business, well develop the potentials of all workers and achieve the best productivities by giving each worker only one specialized job to do. In Burger King, a fast food restaurant, scientific management was well illustrated example. All four principles that Taylor developed in the theory of scientific management was well performed in Burger King. Although scientific management was not a perfect theory, it well increases productivities in all kind of business by specializing and cooperating.