An engineer timed factory workers with a stopwatch to find the one best way to work

Frederick Winslow Taylor argued that almost every job, from shoveling coal to machining steel, had one objectively best method, found by breaking the task into its smallest motions and timing each with a stopwatch. His 'scientific management' replaced workers' own judgment with management-designed procedures, promising higher output and pay in exchange for surrendering control over the work. It reshaped early 20th-century factories and remains a foundation of industrial engineering.

— Frederick Winslow Taylor, The Principles of Scientific Management — 1911