Human Motivation And Workers Productivity
[A CASE STUDY OF BETA GLASS PLC UGHELLI, DELTA STATE, NIGERIA]

IMPROVING PRODUCTIVITY
Some steps in improving productivity
•    Develop productivity measures for all operations, measurement is the first step in managing and controlling an operation
•    Look at the system as a whole in deciding which operations are most critical, it is the over all productivity that is important. The capacity of the bottle neck operation is less than the combined capacities of the operations that provide input, so unit queue up waiting to be processed, hence the term bottle neck. Productivity improvements to any bottle neck operations will not affect the productivity of the system. Improvements in the bottleneck operation will not affect the productivity of the system
•    Improvement in the bottleneck operation will lead to increased productivity, up to the point where the output rate of the bottle neck equals the output rate of the operations feeding it.
•    Development method for achieving productivity improvements, such as soliciting ideas from workers (perhaps organizing team of workers, engineering and managers), studying how other firms have increased productivity and reexamining the way work is done.
•    Establish reasonable goals for improvement
•    Make it clear that management supports and encourages productivity improvements, consider incentives to reward workers for contribution
•    Measure improvement and publicize them
CASES STUDY
PRODUCTIVITY IMPROVEMENT
In April 1999, Stryler Howmedica set up a team to improve running of it’s packaging line. A strategy on productivity improvement was used, adopting the one approach based on the production system of Toyota.
The goal was to satisfy the customer expectations for delivery and quality, while achieving gains in productivity. After the team identify needs and set objectives, a number of improvement were implemented.
A one-piece flow was established that reduces bottleneck in the flow of devices through a clean room and the total time spent blister sealing devices was lowered.
Within a short time, productivity nearly doubled from 36 devices to 60 devices per hour, work-in-progress inventory fell, and a 10 percent reduction in the standard cost of product was achieved.

SOURCE: BASED ON LAURAINE HOWLEY “A STRATEGY FOR COMPANY IMPROVEMENT” MEDICAL DEVICES TECHNOLOGY II, NO 2 (MARCH 200) P. 33
Productivity is therefore a measure of the use of resources which could be impacted upon positively or negatively by the application of the principles and practices of the theory of motivation and other variables.