Productivity

Productivity is one of the most popular word used in the manufacturing or business or competitive world. People who are cost conscious often use this word.

Confused?…

I will clear the confusion.

What is productivity?

Productivity can be defined in following way…

Productivity is a measure of how much output is produced per unit input.

Unit of productivity?

Unit of output of a particular process, is the unit of productivity.

Formula for productivity

Productivity = Output / Input

Productivity example

There was a machine which produces plastic bottles. This machine presently requires 3 people to operate the machine and it produces 300 bottles per hour. Its energy consumption is 5 unit per hour and consumes 15 kg of raw material.

One day general manager came to the shop floor and asked, ‘what is the productivity of this machine?’ to the industrial engineer.

Then he answered, this machines productivity is 100 bottles per one manpower, 60 bottles per one unit of power and 20 bottles per kg of raw material.

And the general manager said I want to double these productivity in one month and he walk away. 😉

Importance of productivity

Productivity is used for monitoring improvement. I will explain this…

In our previous example, the general manager again comes after a month and asked the same question to that industrial engineer, “what is the productivity of this machine?”

Then he answered, this machines productivity is 120 bottles per one manpower, 70 bottles per one unit of power and 23 bottles per kg of raw material.

Although, the productivity reached was not as demanded by manager, he saw some improvement in the productivity and he was happy.

Like this, improvement can be monitored by this very simple calculation. And this will initiate and drive improvement projects.

Productivity calculation example

We will here calculate productivity for all three inputs in our previous example.

Manpower

Productivity formula is = Output/Input

= 300/3

= 100 units

Power

Productivity formula is = Output/Input

= 300/5

= 60 units

Raw material

Productivity formula is = Output/Input

= 300/15

= 20 units

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