1. Historical Perspective and Overview

2. Competitiveness Defined  Competitiveness - the ability to consistently succeed and prosper in the marketplace whether it is local, regional, national, or global.  The most competitive companies are those that outperform their competitors in six key areas.

3. Competitiveness Defined  Quality  Productivity  Response time  Service  Cost  Corporate image

4. Competitiveness Defined  Competitiveness does not lead to a stable place, rather a constantly changing one.  The productivity record of today will be broken tomorrow.  What is considered world-class quality today will be considered mediocre tomorrow.

5. Competitiveness Defined  What is excellent service today will be unsatisfactory service tomorrow.  The acceptable costs of today will be considered too high tomorrow.  Today's excellent corporate image can fade quickly and be gone tomorrow.

6. Productivity & Competitiveness  Productivity is the concept of comparing output of goods or services to the input of resources needed to produce or deliver them.  Productivity is typically expressed as the ratio of output to input.  Output/Input = Productivity

7. Productivity & Competitiveness  Value added is the difference between what it costs to produce a product and what it costs to purchase it.  Value added is increased when productivity is increased.

8. Productivity: A Global View  It is usually viewed that in the U.S., productivity peaked during WWII, and then it has steadily declined since that time.  Actually this isn’t true.  Between 1950 and 1997, productivity in the U.S. increased by 129 percent.

9. Productivity: A Global View  The problem is that productivity in other industrialized countries have increased more during this same period.  The pressure to increase productivity often results in actions that are detrimental to the safety and health of workers.

10. Productivity: A Global View  In there rush to meet deadlines or quotas, workers may disassemble safeguards, stop taking the time to use appropriate PPE, ignore safety rules, neglect equipment maintenance duties, improperly handle or store toxic substances, and take chances that they wouldn’t under normal circumstances.

11. Productivity: A Global View  Such efforts occasionally result in short- term productivity improvements, but they invariably do more harm than good in the the long run.  The inevitable result is that productivity ultimately suffers, and the company finds that it won a battle only to to lose the war.

12. Quality & Competitiveness  Quality goes hand-in-hand with productivity in the competitiveness equation.  Today’s production company must have both.  Quality without productivity results in costs that a too high to be competitive.

13. Quality & Competitiveness  Productivity without quality results in a shabby product that quickly tarnishes the corporate image.  Quality - the measure of the extent to which a product or service meets or exceed customer expectations.

14. Safety & Health/Competitiveness  When the pressures of competing become intense, it is not uncommon for safety and health to be given a lower priority.  Not only is this wrong from an ethical standpoint, it is wrong from the perspective of competitiveness and profitability.

15. Safety & Health/Competitiveness  In the days when a worker’s most important qualifications were physical strength and stamina, there were always plenty of applicants in the labor pool.  If a worker was injured, several equally qualified applicants were waiting to replace him or her.

16. Safety & Health/Competitiveness  However, with the dawning of the age of high technology and the advent of global competition, this situation changed.  Mental ability became more important than physical ability; suddenly, the number of qualified applicants got smaller.

17. Safety & Health/Competitiveness  In fact, whereas the workplace is becoming increasingly technical and complex, the literacy level of the labor pool is actually declining in the U.S.  To compete, companies must recruit, employ, and develop the best possible personnel.

18. Safety & Health/Competitiveness  Having done so, they must keep them safe and healthy to derive the benefits of their talents.  Talented people working in a safe and healthy environment will be more competitive than equally talented people who are constantly distracted by concerns for their safety and health.