In, engineering, ratio of output to input is defined as efficiency and in production systems, this ratio is called as production efficiency or productivity.
Productivity, thus is a measure of how much input is required to produce a given output.
Productivity can be defined in several ways-
  1. Productivity is nothing but the reduction in wastages of resources. The resource may be men, machine, materials, power, space, time, building, etc.
  2. Productivity may be defined as human efforts to produce more and more with less and less inputs of resources.
  3. According to European Productivity Council, "productivity is an attitude of mind. It is a mentality of progress of the constant improvement of that which exists. It is the certainty of being able to do better than yesterday and continuously. It is the constant adaptation of economic and social life to changing conditions, it is a continual effort to apply new techniques and methods, it is the faith in human progress."