Realization of productivity gains is a necessary condition for long-term
consistent improvement in economic well being. We have to work smarter
and produce more efficiently to attain an ever higher quantity and
quality of goods and services without sacrificing leisure. This is true
for the economy at large as well as for individual firms. In a
competitive environment, businesses must continuously improve the
productivity of their operations in order to sustain and augment
profitability and growth. This basic requirement may be temporarily
obscured by unexpected external developments or financial manipulations,
but it is nevertheless essential to the long-term health of any economic
enterprise. Increasing awareness of the importance of productivity has
recently motivated renewed interest in the development and refinement of
productivity-based management techniques. The purpose of this book is to
review and evaluate some of the new contributions in this area. The
analysis of productivity-based management in this book encompasses
planning, decision making and control methods which explicitly
incorporate techniques designed to measure, monitor, induce and improve
underlying productivity performance in production, financial planning,
marketing and international operations. These productivity-based methods
can easily accommodate built-in efficiency incentives designed to
motivate people vii viii PRODUCTIVITY BASED MANAGEMENT working in
decentralized organizations toward goal congruent behavior. It is argued
throughout the book that productivity-based management, at its best, is
likely to improve significantly the efficiency and effectiveness of
economic enterprises.
