Henry Ford used scientific management as the foundation of his engineered, moving assembly line

Henry Ford used scientific management as the foundation of his engineered, moving assembly line and created the next phase in performance management a phase that has dominated most of the twentieth century. science, human relations theory, which campaigned first as the human relations movement, then in the guises of a quality of work life movement, participative management rhetoric and a variety of guerrilla thrusts under the battle cry of motivation theory. The Ford system, though, was too robust to yield to mere humanistic rhetoric. Indeed, the sheer success of Ford's personal vision of scientific management raised Western productivity to unparalled heights and rendered America the "arsenal of democracy" in World War II. Simple management humanism could hardly compete with that. (Finigan, Kathleen, February 15, 1999.)

Without question, scientific management, especially in the form of the moving assembly line, lacks much in human and humane values. It invites criticism. But attempts to invent performance systems on humane foundations that outperform the earlier successes of scientific management have fared badly even as they gathered greater numbers of ideological adherents. The great human relations movement that followed World War II has foundered in the swamps of its own rhetoric. It has gone nowhere.