Productivity

Productivity is a important terms of industrial engineering. It is the heart term of any productive industry. Productivity is the term that has number of different meanings although it is most commonly associated with labor effectiveness in industry. In a broad sense productivity is the ratio of output to some or all of the resources used to produce the output. Productivity = Output / Input. Labor productivity may be defined as “Output per unit of time” or “Output per labor hour” of a production oriented industry. 

We are concerned with all factors effecting productivity, great emphasis will be placed on the effectiveness of labor, the efficient operation of machine, equipment, and facilities and the economical use of materials. All those factors relate to the cost of the product. 

Productivity in its vast concept is the quantitative relationship among what we produce and the resources which we use. There is clear and distinct difference between production and productivity. Actual number of production is truly possible to increase but yet productivity will decrease. In seeking higher  efficiency, productive therefore, we are concerned, not simply with increasing output, but with increasing output from the same or smaller use of resource of all kinds. 

Productivity is an overall conception which is difficult to express or to measure. It is, however, possible to consider productivity in terms of various basic resources used in industry. Thus it is sometimes expressed in terms of the output from labor, or from services, or from the capital invested. Whilst these partial expressions do not necessarily give an accurate picture of the overall position, they may be very useful in that they show trends and broad movements. 

In the long term it is only through advance in productivity that employees can hope to obtain an increase in real wages, shareholders an increase in the purchasing power of their dividends, and customers lower real prices. It is equally true that the future economic strength of the nation in a competitive world depends on management’s success in achieving this aim, wherever the provision of goods or services is involved. With the increase in scientific knowledge and the development of better management techniques this advance should not only be continuous, but should take place at an ever- increasing pace. Here it is as well to remind ourselves of a well-known definition of management: the organization and control of human activity directed to specific ends. 

Factors affecting productivity:

Since national problems may be considered as the sum of individual problems, the best way of improving the national level of productivity would seem to lie in improving that of the individual concern. Clearly, if one can devise way of improving the productivity of the individual concern, one has gone a long way towards solving the problem on a national level. The starting- point is to consider the factors affecting productivity.