This integrated approach to work system improvement is known as methods engineering[1] and it is applied today to industrial as well as service organizations, including banks, schools and hospitals.
[6] Taylor liaised with factory managers and from the success of these discussions wrote several papers proposing the use of wage-contingent performance standards based on scientific time study.
[11] For example, Taylor thought unproductive time usage (soldiering) to be the deliberate attempt of workers to promote their best interests and to keep employers ignorant of how fast work could be carried out.
[23] Proper time studies are based on repeated observation, so that motions performed on the same part differently by one or many workers can be recorded, to determine those values that are truly repetitive and measurable.
In contrast to, and motivated by, Taylor's time study methods, the Gilbreths proposed a technical language, allowing for the analysis of the labor process in a scientific context.
[24] The Gilbreths made use of scientific insights to develop a study method based upon the analysis of "work motions", consisting in part of filming the details of a worker's activities and their body posture while recording the time.
The split with Taylor in 1914, on the basis of attitudes to workers, meant the Gilbreths had to argue contrary to the trade unionists, government commissions and Robert F. Hoxie[28] who believed scientific management was unstoppable.
[29] The Gilbreths were charged with the task of proving that motion study particularly, and scientific management generally, increased industrial output in ways which improved and did not detract from workers' mental and physical strength.
Both Taylor and the Gilbreths continue to be criticized for their respective work, but it should be remembered that they were writing at a time of industrial reorganization and the emergence of large, complex organizations with new forms of technology.