Question

shop is concerned about it's operation. In an attempt to increase productivity they invested employee training, equipment repairs and upgrades. You have been hired as an operations analyst to determine alyst to determine the productivity indexes for the print shop. Last years and this years data is below. M. Determine the productivity index for each resource input for last year and this year. Part B. Has me money spent on training and upgrades been beneficial? Note: please show your work! Last year This Year PART A Printing Output (kilos) Labour (hours) Ink (litres) Capital invested ($) Energy (BTU) 1900 450 72 2100 460 74 $18,000 3500 $12,000 3700 Please record your productivity indexs in the spaces below. Percent Change Last year This Year Labour Index Ink Index Capital Index Energy Index PART B

Answer 1

(A): Index = Output/Input and so for labor index the formula will be = printing output (kilos)/labor (hours). Similarly for other indexes while the output will remain the same the inputs will keep on changing.

	Last year	This year	% change
Labor index	4.22	4.57	8.12%
Ink index	26.39	28.38	7.54%
Capital index	0.16	0.12	-26.32%
Energy index	0.51	0.60	16.84%

The formulas can be seen below:

5 6 Labor index 7 Ink index 8 Capital index 9 Energy index Last year =1900/450 =1900/72 =1900/12000 =1900/3700 This year =2100/460 =2100/74 =2100/18000 =2100/3500 % change =(F6-E6)/E6 =(F7-E7)/E7 =(F8-E8)/E8 =(F9-E9)/E9 20

Part B: Yes, the money spent on training and upgrades has certainly been beneficial as there has been a year-on-year increase in labor index (rise of 8.12%), in ink index (rise of 7.54%) and energy index (rise of 16.84%). The 26.32% fall in capital index can be attributed to increased spending levels this year on employee training, equipment repairs and upgrades.