Scientific management ( which comprises Taylor's work as well as that of another classical theorist Max Weber, Taylorism or the Taylor system, Taylor himself referred to it as Process management) is a theory of management that analyzes and synthesizes workflows, with the objective of improving labor productivity. The core ideas of the theory were developed by Frederick Winslow Taylor in the 1880s and 1890s, and were first published in his monographs, Shop Management (1905) and The Principles of Scientific Management (1911). He began trying to discover a way for workers to increase their efficiency when he was the foreperson at the Midvale Steele Company in 1875. Taylor believed that decisions based upon tradition and rules of thumb should be replaced by precise procedures developed after careful study of an individual at work. Its application is contingent on a high level of managerial control over employee work practices.