When you’ve got a few minutes, take this productivity challenge and see if you can determine the effective performance in your organisation.

The productivity challenge

Try assessing, based on 100, the current effectiveness of a function, a process or a department in your business, using these three factors:

Utilisation

(the % of time actually
working across a day)

Effort

(the % speed and dexterity
of the operator when working)

Method

(the % effectiveness of the method,
activity or process)

For example, you assess utilisation as 75, effort as 75 and method as 80.

75%
75%
80%

You calculate the effective performance by multiplying each factor, so here

75% x 75% x 80% = 45% effective performance.

55%

The bad news is that this suggests the remaining 55% is wasted time, cost or capacity! In a quality-sensitive environment, you could apply quality as a fourth factor, which would reduce the effectiveness even further.


The good news is that

a) you can now identify areas with potential opportunity and
b) even small improvements will contribute significant results.

Just improving utilisation to say 80% will raise the effective performance to 48% – a vital 6.66% productivity improvement, with no increase in effort or method!


Raising each factor by 5 points really starts to have a huge impact on the effective performance. (It becomes 54.4% effective, so a 20.9% improvement – dramatic or what?!)

This hasn’t assumed that people need to work particularly faster to dramatically improve effective performance and productivity.

This view on the potential for productivity improvement illustrates why productivity isn’t about working harder, it’s about working smarter. And it starts to clarify the reality of Time and Motion: less movement, less time = improved productivity.

Being effective = doing the right things

Being efficient = doing things well

Being productive = doing the right things well – all the time

Now you can see just what is achievable with just small improvements in productivity

How to get productivity back on track –
the next steps

We help deliver benefits in resolving cost, capacity and response issues
because we’re about improving productivity.

What to do next

If you need to improve capacity or reduce costs, or you need accurate data to determine how best to cope with change, we can provide the right way forward – cost-effectively. Remember that improving productivity is about making the better use of all your resources and vitally, making much better use of the critical ones.

Whichever business sector you operate in, the chances are we’ve helped people to address their productivity issues and improve the way they operate.

Scott-Grant can really help you improve your productivity and become more streamlined.

to help you understand
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Productivity Issues

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to access the people with the tools and techniques to help

Improve Productivity

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