Key elements of productivity improvement programs

Abstract

Y.K. Shetty is a professor of management at Utah State University in Logan, Utah. He is a consultant and the author of several articles. This article is based primarily on discussions which took place at two workshops entitled Improvement: Company Experiences organized by the College of Business, Utah State University. In each workshop, a group of top company executives and scholars spent a day in intensive discussion. The following companies participated in the workshops: Beatrice Foods Company, Burger King Corporation, Chicago Title and Trust Company, Continental Group, Inc., Coming Glass Works, Detroit Edison, General Foods Corporation, Hughes Aircraft Corporation, Kaiser Aluminum and Chemical Company, Nucor Corporation, and Tanner Companies. For a detailed description of these companies' productivity improvement programs see Vernon M. Buehler and Y.K. Shetty, Productivity Improvement: Case Studies of Proven Practice (Amacom, 1981). These companies ~ experiences axe supplemented by information from other companies such as Aluminum Company of America, Anheuser-Busch, Beech Aircraft Corporation, Bank of America, Boise Cascade, Dana Corporation, DeSoto, Donnelly Mirrors, Inc., Dow Coming, First National Bank of Chicago, Honeywell, Inc., Lear Siegler, Midland-Ross, Northrop Corporation, Phillips Petroleu.m Corporation, RaileyStocker, TRW, United Airlines, United States Steel Corporation, and Westinghouse. A talk with companies which have imp l e m e n t e d product iv i ty i m p r o v e m e n t programs turns up several essential elements which are common to each.