ABSTRACT
In the first half of the twentieth century, nearly all the formal management that was taught was Scientific Management: the increase of productivity through rational measurement, the elimination of waste and duplication, and the search for the "one best way". In France, Scientific Management met with a great deal of enthusiasm from the technical elite. The approach of Scientific Management was to make the best practice standard practice. This included the standardization of tools and equipment for any given job and their provision to the working person by management. The efficiency savings of Scientific Management could not be demonstrated without a different sort of accounting system, one that could demonstrate the costs of waste and "down time" effectively Taylor advocated the use of the Taylor Accounting System as part of the Scientific Management reorganization package. The use of the stopwatch to time work is the element most commonly associated with Taylorism.
