Functional foremanship is a factory management technique that advocates for having multiple foremen in different, specialized roles. Traditionally, factories had just one foreman who would oversee operations. This foreman was the only direct contact for factory workers. Frederick Winslow Taylor, the famous engineer who revolutionized scientific management around the end of the 19th century, found a major flaw in this system. When he listed all of the qualities a successful foreman would need, he realized that no one person could possibly have every single one. Thus, the concept of functional foremanship was born.