Posts Tagged Efficiency
Rigid working times for almost 60 per cent of German employees
January 23rd, 2012 | Thema: News
In Germany the majority of employees continue to work according to rigid working time models, which stipulate both the daily duration of work and the start and end time. This is the result of a survey by the Federal Statistics Office. According to this survey such an inflexible working time model applied to 58.1 per cent of employees in 2010. In comparison, merely 36.3 per cent had an influence on their working time arrangements and were able to use different forms of flexibility.
This flexibility had different characteristics: 24.1 per cent of employees had greater selection possibilities through a working time account. They merely had to reach a given total number of hours and possibly had to be present during so-called core times. A further 10.2 per cent were able to set the start and end of their working time flexibly using a flexitime regulation. 2.0 per cent of employees were completely flexible in setting their working time. Working time regulations did not play any role at all because their performance was assessed exclusively by work results.
Increasing significance of energy and resources efficiency
November 21st, 2011 | Thema: News
The significance of energy efficiency in businesses’ production facilities has grown according to information from the overwhelming majority of manufacturing companies. The same applies to material and resources efficiency. This is the result of a current survey by the ifo Institute of the participants in the ifo growth test.
In the assessment of almost two thirds (64.8 per cent) of those surveyed the significance of energy efficiency in production has risen in the past three years. 30.6 per cent stated that it has remained the same and only a tiny fraction of 0.4 per cent reported that energy efficiency had declined in significance. The role of material and resources efficiency is assessed even higher. Almost 70 per cent of companies gave it a larger value.
According to the environmental and ecological overall resource accounting of the German Federal Statistics Office energy productivity in Germany rose by 38.6 per cent between 1990 and 2010. Raw material productivity rose by 46.8 per cent between 1994 and 2009.
70 Billion Euro Wastage Due to Maintenance
September 26th, 2011 | Thema: Publications
by Nils Blechschmidt
Companies waste billions due to inefficient maintenance management. Projected onto the direct maintenance costs of 450 billion Euros in all European production plants, a savings potential arises of around 70 billion Euros a year. Alone in Germany 14 billion Euros are spent too much on maintenance every year. This is proved by the current ConMoto study “Value Oriented Maintenance – The strategic dimension of the spanner”. Considering only business assets in production facilities and related machinery, out of all investment goods in Europe, a value of around 9.7 trillion Euros in 2008 is reached. Alone in Germany the equipment replacement value amounted to about 1.9 trillion Euros. Calculating cross sector maintenance cost rate of 4.8 %, direct maintenance costs in European production locations add up to over 4.5 billion Euros per year. This study confirms impressively that quick and sustainable successes are realizable. One of the central cost effectiveness Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), the maintenance cost rate, was on average reduced by 23 % for all projects. Projected onto the influenceable maintenance cost of 300 billion Euros a savings potential of circa 70 billion Euros would arise in Europe. Thus alone in Germany 14 billion Euros are spent too much on maintenance services. And in this, the drastically falling costs of production down-time are not considered. read more [...]
Rising working time at higher productivity
July 11th, 2011 | Thema: News
Macroeconomic working volumes increased by 2.8 per cent in the first quarter of 2011 in comparison with the previous year. This is the result of an investigation by the Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB, or the Institute for Employment Research). In the first quarter of 2011 the labour force produced 364.5 working hours on average, which is 5.1 hours or 1.4 per cent more than one year ago. At the same time the labour force also rose by 1.4 per cent. According to the results of the IAB – a research institute of the German Federal Employment Agency – productivity per working hour rose strongly again for the first time in five years and was 2.3 per cent above the previous year’s value. In total macroeconomic production was 5.2 per cent higher in the first quarter of 2011 than in 2010.
At 38.23 hours per week full time employees’ working time was somewhat higher in the first quarter of 2011 than in the first quarter of 2010. Credits in working hours accounts grew because more paid overtime was worked than in the corresponding quarter in the previous year. The number of workers on short time was only around 300,000 per month on average in the first quarter of 2011 – after 933,000 in the first quarter of the previous year.
Rising raw material and energy prices increase cost pressure
October 12th, 2010 | Thema: News
Despite positive growth development German industrial companies continue to experience strong cost pressures. The most important factor here is rising raw material and energy prices. This is the assessment of the economic development expert of the German Chambers of Industry and Commerce (DIHK), Dirk Schlotböller, based on responses from industry. To reduce costs companies are primarily relying on increasing production efficiency. Other cost minimisation levers included recycling raw materials and hedging against rising costs with forward transactions. According to the economics expert passing on costs to customers is the last possibility for many companies.