Efficiency means using available resources rationally to achieve an objective.
The notion of efficiency has its origin in the Latin term efficientia and refers to the ability to count on something or someone to obtain a result . The concept is also usually equated with that of strength or action .
For example: "Prove your efficiency in doing this job 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 rationally to reach a goal. It is the ability to achieve a previously set objective in the shortest possible time and with the minimum possible use of resources, which involves optimization .
Efficiency in physics and economics
It is possible to find the idea of efficiency in different areas. In physics , for example, efficiency 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 economics , we speak of Pareto efficiency or Pareto optimality (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 harming others.
Pareto optimality in an example
An example of Pareto efficiency would be the following: a man enters a store to buy a computer . Each one has different characteristics and its own price, which is usually linked to quality. Thus, when the buyer decides to make his purchase, there are two possibilities:
On the one hand, that the person has enough money to purchase the best computer without having to worry about the price. There is a single objective here: the purchase of equipment with the best technical characteristics.
On the other hand, the buyer may have a limited budget. A multi-objective problem is then generated, since the person has to consider the technical properties of the computer but also its price. In this case, there is no optimal product, but rather there are several pareto-optimal options that can be chosen.
Mainly the term refers to those resources that one has ( human, technological, financial, physical , etc.) to achieve something, the way in which they are used and the results that have been achieved, the better those resources have been used. the greater the efficiency in the way you seek said goal.
The idea of efficiency can be linked to optimization.
How efficiency is applied
Efficiency can be defined in one way or another according to which area it is applied. For example, if applied to administration , it refers to the use of resources that are the means of production that are available and the level of efficiency developed can be known through the equation E=P/R (P= resulting products; R=used resources).
Some experts such as Koontz and Weihrich claim that efficiency consists of achieving the goals that a company has set for itself using the least amount of resources possible. For their part, Robbins and Coulter say that it is obtaining 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 desires and needs of individuals with the results. Within this area, the expert Simón Andrade defines it as the way in which the performance capacity of a certain system is measured where the use of the resources it has is minimized.
Differences with effectiveness
A mistake that is often made is to confuse the meaning of the term efficiency with that of effectiveness , when in reality both are extremely different.
While efficiency implies a positive relationship between the use of project resources and the results achieved, effectiveness refers to the level of objectives achieved in a certain period of time, that is, the ability to achieve what a group proposes. Being effective is simply achieving 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 faced with an ideal project : efficient because it was achieved using the minimum of resources and effective because it was not extended within the period that we had proposed. .