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Supervision and workshop organisation; some Scandinavian, British and Japanese attempts to improve the supervisory function

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 July 2016

Keith Thurley
Keith Thurley*
Affiliation:
London School of Economics
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Extract

The issue that I have been asked to deal with is the contribution that could be made to improving motivation and productivity in British industry by developing the quality and effectiveness of supervision. This seems to require four things: a general discussion of the ‘problem’ of supervision; an examination of the main characteristics of supervisory systems in British manufacturing; a review of some recent attempts to develop the supervisory function and a set of conclusions pointing out alternative policies which seem to be required.

The idea that supervision is ineffective and conservative was argued by Frederick Taylor and others some 70 years ago and has been repeated by management specialists ever since. His remedy in Shop Management was to propose greater specialisation of control functions at shop floor level and the abolition of ‘general foreman’ positions. Such an approach was built on the argument that supervision was too weak and could not cope with the number and range of problems encountered in running a workshop or production system. His ideas led to the development of specialist functional departments, particularly for planning, industrial engineering and quality control; they did not lead to the abolition of the foreman role, although the scope of responsibilities within that role was greatly reduced.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Aeronautical Journal , Volume 82 , Issue 814 , October 1978 , pp. 432 - 436
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Aeronautical Society 1978 

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References

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