Monday, March 25, 2013

Efficiency - What is that?

Efficiency – What is that?


Here I am writing blogs about Efficiency and talking about it without taking into account the fact that people have all kinds of different ideas about Efficiency and do not necessarily know which definition of Efficiency I use.

So, let’s clarify this first:

An engineer or someone in a related field looks at efficiency as the ratio between input and output/return. The less electricity or fuel you need (input) and the higher the heat, cooling, mileage, etc. (output/return) is, the more efficient the machinery, car or system and so on.

A factory operator or anyone designing any kind of an assembly line looks mostly at it from a time / motion proposition.

All of these are valid definitions and have their uses and workability.

Now, let’s take a more expanded look at it (this is the definition I use):

“Efficiency is defined as being able to do any kind of task or action to completion and good result. This is done without wasting time, money, materials and resources!”

Since completion and good results are part of this, “Effectiveness” is actually part of the definition of “Efficiency”!

That is an important point since I have observed numerous times that someone would complete a task with good results, but the amount of time needed or the amount of money, materials or resources used was way too much!

Therefore, when you hear me talking about “Efficiency”, know that I use it as the more senior concept / definition and that “Effectiveness” is just a part of that.