Productivity growth is one of the three fundamental drivers of economic growth. The other two drivers are capital growth and labour growth. Because in advanced economies such as those of Western Europe and North America labour growth and capital growth no longer grow so fast, productivity growth is now THE major driver of economic growth.

In almost 25 years of working in operationally focused businesses in manufacturing, distribution and logistics services, I have yet to come across a business in which significant productivity gains cannot be achieved by straightforward changes to the way that work is planned and organised and by aggressively identifying and eliminating waste in all of its forms.
More specifically I have found that that in typical warehouse and logistics operations in manufacturing and distribution over 80% of facilities can achieve output productivity gains of 20% to 30% relatively easily through taking decisive action to improve organization and eliminate waste and often with little or no capital expenditure.
This is great news for the owners and managers of any business with processes that are amenable to productivity improvement because it means that you have the power to take action now that is going to be massively positive for your company and for the whole economy.
Furthermore, and this is even better news, it has got nothing to do with government policy, the state of the banks or the oft cited “current economic climate”, but rather only with how you perform work, how you organise the resources already at your disposal and how creative and innovative you are with these resources to add more value to your business.
Great news indeed!