Productivity, types of productivity, productivity index, total productivity

Whats is productivity?

Productivity is the ratio of output to some or all of the resources used to produce the output.

Types of productivity

We can mention the following types of partial productivities:

• Labor productivity: units produced / hours worked
• Capital productivity: output / capital input
• Material productivity: output /material input

What is the productivity index?

We can calculate a type of partial productivity as labor productivity as output per man hours for a complete year. These figures obtained from year to year can be indexed and can be related to a base year so that output per man our comparisons can be made.

Definition of total productivity

It is the ratio of tangible output and tangible input.

Differences among partial productivity, total factor productivity and total productivity

Men, materials, machines, methods, money, energy, etc. are inputs.

• Partial productivity: output / one class of input
• Total factor productivity: net output / (labor + capital)
• Total productivity : sum of all tangible outputs / sum of all tangible inputs

Methods engineering and workplace design

Workplace design

Material usually flows through a facility, stopping briefly at stations where additional work is done on it to bring it closer to a finished product. These workstations, or workplaces, must be designed to permit performance of the required operations, to contain all the tooling and equipment needed to fit the capabilities and limitations of the people working at them, to be safe and to interface smoothly with neighboring workplaces.

Human engineering and ergonomic factors must be considered so that all work, tools, and machine activation devices are not only within the comfortable reach of the operator but are designed for safe and efficient operation. A workplace chart which analyzes the required actions of both hands is an aid in workplace design.