Definition of efficiency - What it is, Meaning and Concept

The notion of efficiency has its origin in the Latin term efficientia and refers to the ability to have something or someone to obtain a result .The concept is also usually equated with that of strength or that of action.

For example: «Show your efficiency to do this work and you will stay in the company », « The efficiency of this engine cannot be discussed », « Without efficiency, the existence of this office is meaningless ».

Efficiency, therefore, is linked to using the available means in a rational way to reach a goal.It is the ability to achieve a previously set target in the shortest possible time and with the minimum possible use of resources, which means optimization .

It is possible to find the idea of ​​efficiency in different fields.In the physics , for example, efficiency it has to do with the link between the energy that is invested and the energy that is used in a procedure or in a system.

In economy , we talk about the Pareto efficiency (by Vilfredo Pareto ) to name the state that is reached when it is impossible to improve the situation of the component of a system without threatening others.

An example of Pareto's efficiency would be the following: a man enters a store to buy a computer .Each account with different characteristics and its own price , which is usually linked to quality.Thus, when the buyer decides to make a purchase, there are two possibilities:

On the one hand, that the person has enough money to acquire the best computer without having to worry about the price.Here is a single objective: the purchase of the equipment with the best technical characteristics.

On the other hand, it may happen that the buyer has a limited budget.Then a problem with multiple objectives is generated, since the person has to consider the technical properties of the computer but also its price.In this case, there is no an optimal product, but there are several pareto-optimal options that can be chosen.

Mainly the term refers to those resources that are available ( human, technological, financial, physical , etc.) to achieve something, the way in which they are used and the results to which has arrived, the better those resources have been used, the greater the efficiency in the way of pursuing that goal.

Efficiency can be defined in one way or another according to which item is applied.For example, if it is applied to the administration it refers to the use of resources that are the means of production that are available and the level of efficiency developed through the equation E=P/R (P=resulting products; R=resources used) can be known.

Some experts such as Koontz and Weihrich say that efficiency is the achievement of those goals that a company has proposed using as little resources as possible.For its part, Robbins and Coulter , they say that it is to obtain results of an important magnitude by investing the minimum amount possible in it; while Reinaldo O.Da Silva is inclined to say that efficiency implies operating in a certain way in which all resources are used in the most appropriate way possible.

With regard to the economy , efficiency implies the use of society's resources in the best possible way, satisfying the wishes and needs of individuals with the results.In this area, the expert Simon Andrade defines it as the way in which the acting capacity of a given system is measured, where the use of the resources that are minimized is minimized.they have.

A mistake that is usually made is to confuse the meaning of the term efficiency with that of efficiency , when in reality both are very different.

While efficiency implies a positive relationship between the use of the resources of the project and the results achieved, effectiveness refers to the level of objectives achieved within a certain period, that is to say the ability to achieve what a group proposes.To be effective is simply to reach the stipulated goal, regardless of the level of resources used.

This means that you can be efficient without being effective and vice versa, but if both requirements are met, we would be facing an ideal project : efficient because it has been achieved using minimum resources and effective because no It has been extended within the deadline we had set.