PRODUCTIVITY IN DIFFICULT TIMES

KUNAL CHOUDHARY
ANKIT JHAROTIYA
ANIL GOYAL
SATISH KUMAR

(2011IPG-054)
(2012IPG-013)
(2012IPG-108)
(2012IPG-126)

In practice, several measures of

productivity are used:
Partial measures

Revenue or sales/wages or labor cost

Value added/number of persons employed
Output/energy used
Sales/persons or wages
Output/machine hours

Total measures

focus on the total costs of

producing an output ( e.g. Revenue/Total
costs)

WHY PRODUCTIVITY IS IMPORTANT ?

Enhancing productivity at all levels of the economy (department,
organization, sector, industry, nation) is vital to

rapid economic growth

higher standard of living
international competitiveness and foreign exchange generation
inflation control
capital investment
employment generation

FACTORS RESPONSIBLE FOR POOR PRODUCTIVITY

Neglecting operations strategy.

Failing to take advantage of strengths and opportunities,
and/or failing to recognize competitive threats.
Putting too much emphasis on short-term financial
performance at the expense of research and
development.
Placing too much emphasis on product and service design
and not enough on process design and improvement.
Neglecting investments in capital and human resources.
Failing to establish good internal communications and
cooperation among different functional areas.
Failing to consider customer need.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Paper :
Author :

Relationship view of productivity improvement

Misterek et al. (1992)

Productivity can be improved by five relationships

Output increases faster than input; the increase in
input is
proportionately less than the increase
in output (managed growth).
More output from the same input (working smarter).
More output with a reduction in input (the ideal).
Same output with fewer inputs (greater efficiency).
Output decreases, but input decreases more; the
decrease in
input is proportionately greater
than the decrease in input (managed decline).

Paper

: Enhancing Employee Productivity in

Difficult Times
Author : Charles A. Volkert

In response to the difficult economy, many

companies are attempting to survive by reducing
staff, and, as a result, are left with the task of
maintaining productivity with reduced resources.
pruning underperforming employees or
employees in slow practice areas
That why now more than ever, firms and
departments need to strategically leverage
the skills of their remaining staff.

 Re-orient your staff

Promote the value of time management
Make the most of technology
Make small gestures of gratitude
Revamp project teams
Consider bringing in project
professionals

some strategies for maximizing the

efficiency of a team.
Re-orient your staff
To help staff adjust to the reality of an altered work environment,
re-orientation can include answers (to the extent possible) to your
staffs questions about what may happen next
(e.g., Will there be more layoffs?
Will the remaining secretaries each support additional
associates?).
Let your support staff know whats expected of them moving forward.
Assure them that you will continue to communicate emerging changes
and provide as much information as possible.
thank them for their efforts and remind them that their hard work will
help the firm endure the current downturn.

Promote the value of time management

With fewer staff members to take on additional
work, effective time management skills become
critical
juggling multiple cases and matters, or picking up
the workload of a colleague who has left.
Impress upon all support staff the importance of
staying organized and continually prioritizing
activities.
working with staff to create a master
project/case list.
Then, with your guidance, the team can clarify
deadlines, establish interim goals and divide tasks.

Make the most use of technology

Equipping staff members with advanced

technical tools can be one of the most effective
means of enhancing productivity.
mobile devices, which offer them the flexibility
of working from a variety of settings including at
home and on the road.
set some ground rules about how much time
and in what circumstances you expect staff to
be available out of hours through the use of
these devices.

Make small gestures of gratitude

While this isnt the time for splurges on

office-wide parties and lavish staff
lunches, there are still affordable ways
you can recognize and reward your teams
efforts.
A seemingly minor gesturelike coffee
and cookies delivered to the office in the
midst of a marathon discovery initiative or
a simple thanks for hanging in there
can boost flagging morale.

Revamp project teams

Layoffs may have left some teams short on

critical skills.
Take a look at the composition of your project
teams to determine whether gaps exist.
You may decide to combine some teams,
move certain staff members to new
assignments, or allocate tasks differently.
Whichever tactics you choose, be sure to let
your staff know in advance that youll be
doing some shuffling and why.

Consider bringing in project professionals

If firm laid off a dozen professionals, then

days later landed a major project.
Instead of spreading the additional work
around to an already over-stretched staff
you could work with a specialized staffing
firm to access assistants with expertise on a
short-term, project basis.
This will allow your full-time staff to
continue to service the firms clients
without missing deadlines.

 Alternatively, you may decide to

assign a team of full-time support
staff members to the new project
and hire temporary or project
professionals to handle more
routine matters

 These techniques that will help set the

right tone in the workplace.
As far as possible, check your own stress
at the door when you arrive at the office,
and try to maintain a demeanor of calm
professionalism.
these strategies are steadying and
reassuring, and theyll be better able to
focus on their jobs and work at top form.

Paper : Improve productivity

through lean manufacturing
Author : Burton T. and Boeder,
2003

Based on the planned elimination of all

waste, the continuous improvement of
productivity, and an ongoing focus on
customer value. It covers a wide variety
of operations for reducing waste,
increasing productivity and cutting cost.
The emphasis in lean manufacturing is
utilization of lesser resources to produce
the same goods.

The major five principles of Lean are as follows:

Principle 1: Accurately specify value from
customer perspective for both products and
services.
Principle 2: Identify the value stream for
products and services and remove non-value
adding waste along the value stream.
Principle 3: Make the product and services flow
without interruption across the value stream.
Principle 4: Authorize production of products
and services based on the pull by the customer.
Principle 5: Strive for perfection by constantly
removing layers of waste.

CASE EXAMPLE - TOYOTA

Toyotas Difficult Phase

After World War II, Toyota was almost bankrupt.
Post war demand was low and minimising the cost per unit
through economies of scale was inappropriate. This led to
the development of demand-led pull systems.
The Japanese could not afford the expensive mass
production facilities of the type used in the USA so they
instead focused on reducing waste and low cost
automation.
Likewise, Toyota could not afford to maintain high
inventory levels.

Toyota Production System

Based on three philosophies:
Elimination of waste
Low cost automation
Respect for people

7 Principles of Toyota Production

system
1. Reduced setup times
All setup practices arewasteful because they add no value and they
tie up labour and equipment. By organizing procedures, using carts,
and training workers to do their own setups.Toyotamanaged to slash
setup times from months to hours and sometimes even minutes.

2. Small-Lot Production
Producing things in large batches results in huge setup costs, high
capital cost of high-speed dedicated machinery, larger inventories,
extended lead times, and larger defect costs. BecauseToyota has
found the way to make setups short and inexpensive, it became
possible for them to economically produce a variety of things in small
quantities

3. Employee involvement & empowerment

Toyota organized their workers by formingteams and gave them
the responsibility and training to do many specialized tasks. Teams
are also given responsibility for housekeeping and minor equipment
repair. Each team has aleader who also works as one of them on
the line.

4. Quality at the source

To eliminate product defects, they must be discovered and
corrected as soon as possible. Since workers are at the best
position to discover a defect and to immediately fix it, they are
assigned this responsibility. If a defect cannot be readily fixed, any
worker can halt the entire line by pulling a cord.

5. Equipment maintenance
Toyota operators are assigned primary responsibility for basic
maintenance since they are in the best position to defect signs of
malfunctions. Maintenance specialists diagnose andfix only
complex problems,improve the performance of equipment, and

6. Pull Production
To reduce inventory holding costs and lead times, Toyota developed
the pull production method wherein the quantity of work performed
at each stage of theprocess is dictated solely by demand for
materials from the immediate next stage. TheKambanscheme
coordinates the flow of small containers of materials between
stages. This is where the termJust-in-Time (JIT) originated.

7. Supplier Involvement
Toyota treats its suppliers aspartners, an integral elements of
Toyota Production System (TPS). Suppliers are trained in ways to
reduce setup times, inventories, defects, machine breakdowns etc.,
and take responsibility to deliver their best possible parts.

Toyota is now the world's largest

carmaker
Toyota sold 2.43 million vehicles in the first
three months of 2016.
Last year, Toyota sold 9.7 million cars and
trucks worldwide to beat GM's 9.29 million
and Volkswagen at 9.1 million.

THANK YOU