Evolution of Productivity Management

F.W. Taylor

Piece Rate System

Shop Management

Scientific Management

Frank Gilbreth

Motion Study

Applied Scientific Management

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
is the 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.



Improving Total Productivity - Paul Mali 1978 - Chapter Summaries

Updated on  26 June 2019,   4 November 2018,  21 April 2018, 6 April 2018