Clockwork

Streaming video - 2015

One hundred years ago American management faced many of the problems it confronts today - poor productivity, rapid technological change, and heightened competition. Clockwork shows how Frederick Taylor and his followers attempted to meet these challenges through "scientific management," a radical program to organize every aspect of production under a regime of quantitative measures and systematic planning. Clockwork is the only film on Taylor's work and its continuing influence on the modern workplace. The film includes original historical footage which Taylor and his contemporaries, the Gilbreths, shot for the pioneering time-motion studies which paved the way for the modern automated assembly line and unskilled factory work...er. Clockwork shows how even the latest computer assisted design and manufacturing systems unwittingly incorporate Taylor's theories of production management. Today, many organizational theorists argue we must urgently challenge Taylor's legacy if America is to develop the participative workplace needed for the high value-added production of today's global economy. "Extremely useful for students of management history and industrial engineering. An indispensable text." - George Strauss, University of California, Berkeley "An historic film. A great piece of work...I recommend its purchase by any university or business school." - Charles Wrege, Academy of Management historian "Generates a healthy discussion of 'scientific management'... American industry needs more such films." - David Shayt, Society of Industrial Archeology. more