The Bedaux Unit emerged from the U.S.

scientific management Scientific management is a theory of management that analyzes and synthesizes workflows. Its main objective is improving economic efficiency, especially labor productivity. It was one of the earliest attempts to apply science to the engineer ...

movement. It remains in daily use in measuring and comparing manual labor to this day.

F. W. Taylor's time studies

While F. W. Taylor remains famous for conducting time studies on employees, these studies' influence on subsequent workplaces have long been harder to determine. argues that 'A comprehensive and detailed outline of the principles of Taylorism is essential to our narrative, not because of the things for which it is popularly known - stopwatch, speed-up, etc. - but because behind these commonplaces there lies a theory which is nothing less than the explicit verbalization of the capitalist mode of production ... It is impossible to overestimate the importance of the scientific management movement in the shaping of the modern corporation and indeed all institutions of capitalist society which carry on labor processes ... Taylorism dominates the world of production.' Recent research has revealed that the core purpose of Taylor's time studies was to produce ''Unit-Times'' data, as espoused in his ''Shop Management'' (1903) and ''Concrete Costs'' (1912), which he co-authored with

Sanford E. Thompson Sanford Eleazer Thompson (1867–1949) was an American engineer and consultant to the U.S. government and private sector. He is considered one of the key figures of the American scientific management movement, which emerged in the progressive era. ...

.Michael R. Weatherburn, 'Scientific Management at Work: the Bedaux System, Management Consulting, and Worker Efficiency in British Industry, 1914-48' (Imperial College PhD thesis, 2014).

Emerson Consulting

The key individual who spotted Taylor's focus on ''Unit-Times'' was Harrington Emerson and his firm Emerson Consulting. Emerson's circle was the basis for several innovations with ''Unit-Times'' by his followers Charles E. Knoeppel, Charles E. Bedaux and Earl K. Wennerlund.

The Bedaux ''B''

Building on Taylor's ''Unit-Times'', and his experience at Emerson Consulting, Bedaux introduced the practice of ''rating assessment''. Through ''rating'' Bedaux developed the " Bedaux System of Human Power Measurement" which arrived at a universal measure for all manual work, the ''Bedaux Unit'' or ''B''.Steven Kreis, 'Charles E. Bedaux' in '' American National Biography'
online
/ref>Craig R. Littler, ''Development of the Labour Process in Capitalist Societies: a Comparative Study of the Transformation of Work Organization in Britain, Japan and the USA'' (London: Heinemann, 1982

/ref> The Bedaux ''B'', and units derived from it such as the Rowntree ''Mark'' and the Urwick, Orr & Partners ''Point'', led to improvements in the comparability of employee and departmental efficiency,Steven Kreis, 'The Diffusion of Scientific Management: the Bedaux Company in America and Britain, 1926-1945' in ''A Mental Revolution: Scientific Management Since Taylor'' (1992) as well as labor and activist disputes about the purpose and practices of time studies and the ''B''. Bedaux's claims to originality in making this innovation remain a topic of debate. Edward Francis Leopold Brech, ''Productivity in Perspective, 1914-1974'' (Bristol: Thoemmes Press, 2002).Kenneth Hopper and William Hopper, ''The Puritan Gift: Reclaiming the American Dream Amidst Global Financial Chaos'' (I B Tauris, 2009
IB Tauris link
E.F.L. Brech, Andrew Thomson, John F. Wilson, ''Lyndall Urwick, Management Pioneer: A Biography'' (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010)

British Standard 3138

The Bedaux consultancy, its offshoots, and the

Bedaux System The efficiency movement was a major movement in the United States, Britain and other industrial nations in the early 20th century that sought to identify and eliminate waste in all areas of the economy and society, and to develop and implement best ...

were particularly influential in Britain well into the 1950s.'Christopher D. McKenna, ''The World's Newest Profession: Management Consulting in the Twentieth Century'' (Cambridge: CUP, 2010)
Cambridge University Press
/ref> In 1959, the British Standards Institution issued British Standard 3138 ''(Work Study)'', which was based on the Bedaux ''B''. British Standard 3138 was reissued in 1979 and 1992, and remains in daily use in job evaluations today.

Notes and references

References

{{Reflist Time and motion study