No history of industrial engineering would be complete without mentioning Fredrick Winslow Taylor. Taylor is probably the best known of the pioneers in industrial engineering. He used the ASME as present his ideas on the organization of work by management. He coined the term "scientific management" to describe the methods he developed through empirical studies. His work, like others, covered topics such as the organization of work by management, worker selection, training, and additional compensation for those individuals that could meet the standard as developed by the company through his methods. The Taylor method of Scientific Management had far reaching effects on the industrial revolution, in America, and abroad.
The Gilbreth family is accredited with the development of time and motion studies. Frank Bunker Gilbreth and his wife Dr. Lillian M. Gilbreth worked on understanding fatigue, skill development, motion studies, as well as time studies. Lillian Gilbreth had a Ph.D. in psychology which helped in understanding the many people issues. The Gilbreth family was interested in the "one best way" to do work. One of the most significant things the Gilbreth family did was to classify the basic human motions into seventeen types, some effective and some non-effective. They labeled the table of classification therbligs (Gilbreth spelled backwards). Effective therbligs are useful in accomplishing work and non-effective therbligs are not. Gilbreth concluded that the time to complete an effective therblig can be shortened but will be very hard to eliminate. On the other hand non-effective therbligs should be completely eliminated if possible. Gilbreth claims that any form of work can be broken down into these simple types of work.