Productivity can be defined as the efficiency of an organization or an individual to produce the required output from the inputs used. The rate at which an individual or organization works for a product/ service can be measured by Productivity respectively.
Measuring Productivity is a wider concept and also depends on the type of organization you are working at. Measuring the productivity of manufacturing or production companies is easier than that of knowledge workers. Workers involved in manufacturing or production activities have time and data sheets with figures representing the details of work done. Whereas knowledge workers are concerned, measuring the amount of innovative or creative work done might be tricky to measure at times.
In such cases, the quality of work done is one of the key aspects to determine one’s productivity. Quality can be defined as the standard of any product/service against other similar kinds to determine its ability to satisfy the consumers and also determine its competitive position in the market.
Today, delivering a quality product has become one of the top priorities for any organization due to the ever-changing competitive nature of the market. Quality Management is a concept, where the standards are pre-determined as per the trend in the industry and the quality standards set by the Government.
To gain competitive superiority and attain dominance over the market through quality, companies implement various quality standards and adopt various approaches for quality compliance.
One such approach is Total Quality Management (TQM). An organization’s Quality Control department alone isn’t responsible for delivering quality products, but it’s the responsibility of every employee working there. The TQM approach is focused on transcending customers’ expectations, identifying problems, and promoting open discussions amongst workers.
An eye-catching, dramatic or smartly executed advertisement might attract you towards the product/service initially, but if it fails to meet the customer’s quality expectations, then they are highly likely to move over to your competitors.
There are different quality dimensions a company can rely on such as performance, features, durability, etc. on which the standards are set and quality is measured. A company must perform well on all fronts in order to attain a competitive advantage and stay on top of the pyramid. But at the same time, internal factors like plant layouts, machinery, etc. can affect productivity which directly affects quality. Setting the standards, complying with them, and getting recognition from Government authorized standardization bodies are the primary responsibilities of an Operations Manager.
Today, many top institutes like MIT School of Distance Education have a Post Graduate Diploma in Operations Management in which you learn to achieve the set goals of an organization in the given time and budget while coordinating with different departments.
To conclude, managing productivity and quality are both co-relating aspects of any organization and are to be done precisely by the Operations Manager to help achieve the set objective.