The Evolution of Productivity Management

Lesson 337  of  Industrial Engineering ONLINE Course.

Lesson  of  Productivity Management Module.

The Evolution of Productivity Management

Chapter of Productivity Management in Engineering Organizations - Online Book

The Evolution of Productivity Management - Important Contributors and Their Contributions and Systems

Importance of productivity improvement was highlighted by the first President of ASME in 1880. Henry Towne in 1886, presented a paper in ASME Conference strongly highlighting the need for engineering efforts to reduce cost of production on a continuous basis. He also presented a paper in 1889 explaining the method followed in his company to involve all production/shop employees in cost reduction effort. 

F.W. Taylor responded to these cost reduction calls by explaining the initiatives he had taken. in 1893, he presented his paper on the improvements done in the area of belt design to reduce overall cost belt systems that included installation cost, maintenance cost and operation time lost due to maintenance time. In 1895, he presented a full explanation of the productivity improvement system utilizing study and reduction of time taken by machines and men to do elementary activities that are present in multiple different engineering jobs. Then he advocated fixing of piece rates and daily rates that provided additional income or higher wages to operator to learn and use new methods and produce higher output. In this paper, he suggested organizing a rate fixing department, that later on became industrial engineering department that takes the responsibility of improving productivity in engineering organizations. This paper became popular as piece rate system. F.W Taylor is regarded as the father of industrial engineering for this engineering innovation in the area of organizing engineering knowledge or practice.

F.W. Taylor

Piece Rate System

Shop Management

Scientific Management

Frank Gilbreth

Motion Study

Applied Scientific Management

Paul Mali

Improving Total Productivity - Paul Mali 1978 - Chapter Summaries


1981

Total Involvement as a Productivity Strategy

Ian Rolland
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Lincoln National Life Insurance Company
and President and chief executive officer of Lincoln National Corporation Company in Fort
Wayne, Indiana.

Robert Janson
Executive vice-president of Roy W. Walters & Associates, Inc., consultants to management, in Mahwah, New Jersey.
California Management Review, WINTER / 1981 / VOL. XXIV / NO. 2, pp. 40-48

• Productivity is a long-term survival issue. Unless a company focuses on productivity as a key
ingredient of their corporate philosophy, it won't survive.
• Companies must plan for productivity. Productivity does not just happen. It requires a strategy that is comprehensive, long-range, and monitored. It requires rational, purposeful behavior on the part of everyone.
• Employee security must be assured. Productivity should not be looked at as cost cutting or it
will make people insecure. This does not mean that they won't be doing different things, however.
• Employee involvement is the key ingredient to productivity. Management must create a
structure that focuses people's energy inward to their own jobs and organization rather than
how unhappy they are or how bad the organization is.
• Ownership and commitment are essential. Unless everyone feels part of the effort and looks on it as something that will help them, it won't work.
• Productivity and individual responsibility work together. An organization should be designed
for accountability to the lowest possible level. This requires in many cases a broad redesign
of tasks and jobs.
• Productivity is a very complex issue. The important thing is to have a strategy that is long term,
with measurable goals. Individual units will have different applications.
• A good strategy will have multiple phases. The effort should not be looked at as a "quick
fix." It takes time to move the organization in a new direction.
• Productivity strategies must support and strengthen the business mission. The mission
of the company, with its goals and objectives, comes before individual productivity efforts.

David J. Sumanth (1984)

Productivity management is a formal process involving all levels of management and employees with the ultimate objective of reducing the cost of the manufacturing, distributing, and selling of a product or service through an integration of the four phases of the productivity cycle, namely, productivity measurement, evaluation, planning, and improvement.

D. Scott Sink (1985)

Basic Productivity Management Process includes the following: (1) measuring and evaluating productivity; (2) Planning for control and improvement of productivity based on information provided by measurement  and evaluation process; (3) making control and improvement interventions; and (4) measuring and evaluating the impact of these interventions.

The essence of productivity management process is to direct and motivate productivity planning and action through the productivity measurement system.

A Synopsis of Productivity Management

Productivity management involves planning, organizing, leading, controlling, and adapting processes, technologies, output and inputs based on the relationship between quantities of outputs (including in revenue/price terms) from a system and quantities of input (including in cost/price terms) to the system.  Productivity management is an important planning and control function like other management functions. But, there is a growing concern that it has been overlooked and that it needs to be better developed.

In the 1985 book, Scott Sink expressed the opinion that there are no significant breakthroughs.  Much of the success in Japan and elsewhere appears to result from more effective implementation.

Productivity managers have to understand the various functions that contribute to the creation of goods and/or services. They have to take a large strategic view of the system and examine the individual machines and operators to make productivity improvements that are alignment with the productivity strategy and show measurable results.

Prem Vrat, G.D. Sardana, B.S. Sahay (2009)

Productivity Management

All activities of overall management which determine productivity policy, productivity planning, productivity audit, productivity monitoring and control, productivity measurement, productivity evaluation, organisational structure, procedures, processes and resources to implement productivity improvement programmes and policy.

Narayana Rao Kambhampati (2017)

Productivity management is included as a principle in principles of industrial engineering.
(Kambhampati, Venkata Satya Surya Narayana Rao, "Principles of Industrial Engineering", IIE Annual Conference. Proceedings; Norcross (2017): 890-895).
https://nraoiekc.blogspot.com/2017/06/productivity-management-principle-of.html

Productivity management

Productivity management is the responsibility of industrial engineers. Productivity management practice has two areas of focus in industrial engineering. One is an evaluation of management processes and plans for their impact on the productivity of engineering activities and processes. If the evaluation shows that productivity can change due to change in management process or plan, industrial engineers have to come up with redesigns and recommend them to management at various levels. Due to this component, industrial engineers have to learn management principles and

methods in various industrial and business functions.

The second component is the application of management theory and practice to the task of productivity improvement. Every industrial engineer is a productivity manager. He has to learn complete management theory and its application in IE practice.

Principles of Industrial Engineering - 2017

Principles of Industrial Engineering - YouTube Video Presentation

Functions of Industrial Engineering - 2018

Functions of Industrial Engineering - YouTube Video


(C) Narayana Rao K.V.S.S. 2019

Next Chapter
4. Total Productivity Management

2022

2022

Title Reimagining Work in the New Norm: The Exponential Workplace

Author(s) Azim Pawanchik

https://www.apo-tokyo.org/publications/reimagining-work-in-the-new-norm-the-exponential-workplace/

2023

Productivity Tips in Social Media

Your productivity is a work done in certain period.

More work done in the same period with the same resources increase productivity.

You need to get organized to be more productive.

You need to be more focused on your work if you want to be more productive.

Good execution plans can increase your productivity.

You need improve  your process and systems if you want to accelerate performing the same job. 

Your personal life have influence on your business life and productivity.

Everything varies wildly from day-to-day, from month to month, from year to year…

Working with passion can bring more work done.

Enjoying what you work will help you to do more work.

Inspiration is the productivity creator.

Negative individual emotions have a negative effect on your work done.

Preparation will increase possibilities of quality of the work you done.

Focus on the desired results will increase a possibility of quality accomplishment.

There will be always the possibility of improvement.

Tracking the progress will improve your work done over the time.

Lists are a very useful stuff.

Finding constraints and cut them permanently will increase personal and business efficiency.

Outsourcing of unimportant stuff will help you.

First do the most important things.

Help from other people is welcomed and accepted.

If you finish easier tasks as first, you will increase your overall productivity.

What you can to do today, do it today, not tomorrow.

Your productivity in many cases will depend on the productivity of your environment.

Physical environment can influence your productivity.

Taking a short break will improve your personal productivity.

Refreshing the mind give us additional energy.

Accepted criticism make better work done in the shorter period.

Distraction has a negative effect on you.

Learning from other people and businesses will give you possibilities to escape their mistakes.

Stress has a negative effect on work you done.

Celebrating success with your team will give you and your team additional potential energy.

Self-confidence is important.

Proactive, not reactive is the basis for success.

Notebooks are useful when something important comes to our mind.

It is normally that nothing goes right all the time. Technology is here to help you. Don’t escape from the new technology. Do not be afraid if you don’t know how to use something new.

Everything can be learned.

Everything can be systematized. Everything can be improved and simplified.

Posted by Dragan Sutevski

Dragan Sutevski is a founder and CEO of Sutevski Consulting, creating business excellence through innovative thinking. 

https://www.entrepreneurshipinabox.com/11324/60-productivity-rules-updated-expanded/

Ud. 23.1.2022

Pub. 12.10.2019