The search for ever greater levels of productivity is due in general to manâ€(tm)s natural tendency to minimize the amount of labour needed to produce the goods useful for maximizing the satisfaction of his needs for survival and progress. Labour in effect represents a necessary but “unpleasant†and strenuous activity to be minimized. As production requires labour, and labour is extremely strenuous, since the dawn of economic activity man has searched for ever higher levels of labour efficiency, expressed by the ratio between the volumes and quality of the goods produced or consumed and the effort required to produce or to consume them. In this search, working man soon realizes it is more efficient â€" thus, more convenient â€" to specialize in the production of a single good, a component of a good, or even a component of a component, giving rise to the first production processes and production systems, thereby reducing those segments of the processes that lead to time savings through learning. This need to increase the efficiency of production has become even more deeply felt when the production was carried out by business organizations. This paper will try demonstrate that productivity is the basis of all productive systems, which are viewed as transformers of utility and value, since the search for maximum productive efficiency is necessary to reduce production costs and thus to produce value. After presenting a coherent frame of reference we shall examine the drivers of productivity and then move on to discuss the consequences of the continual growth in productivity and the non-economic aspects linked to the gradual improvement in productivity.
