Together The Gilbreths formed one of the great husband-and-wife teams of science and engineering. In the early 1900s, they started work on the development of motion study as a performance improvement technique. Frank, who started his working life as a bricklayer, had noticed that no two bricklayers seemed to use the same method - each

Elton Mayo was born in Adelaide, South Australia on 26 December 1880 and died in Guildford, Surrey on 1 September 1949. He was the second child of a respected colonial family. Elton was expected to follow his grandfather into medicine, but failed at university studies and was sent to Britain. Here he turned to writing,

Charles E. Sorensen went with his parents to the USA from Denmark when he was four years old. His first job was at the Buffalo Stove factory, where he trained as a pattern maker and foundry man. His interest in casting was to remain with him all of his life. A firm of custom foundry-men

Taylor was born in Germantown (now part of Philadelphia), Pennsylvania. In 1878, he began working at the Midvale Steel Company. As he rose to become foreman of the steel plant, he started to apply himself to thoughts about efficiency and productivity. These thoughts led to the development of what became known as "scientific management". In