Efficiency vs. Effectiveness

Efficiency: “Accomplishment of or ability to accomplish a job with a minimum expenditure of time and effort.”

Effectiveness: “Adequate to accomplish a purpose; producing the intended or expected result.”

I feel as though the words efficiency and effectiveness often get confused for one another. Which is funny, considering how different they really are. I mean we are talking about a monumental difference here. Especially when it comes to the packaging industry. This could be the difference between just being successful and actually matching the potential you envisioned when the project first started. 

Imagine this scenario for a second: your boss tells you to go and try to find a quote for some machinery that needs to be purchased for a new project. They type of machinery is entirely up to you and what you believe will be best for the project. 

The effective thing to do (and what some people would consider the efficient thing to do) would be to call around, and get a quote as quickly as possible. The logic is there—the faster you get the quote, the faster you can start going into production! Right? Well, maybe not so much.

Projects are complicated; anyone in this industry knows that. When you tell a company to give you a quote, they don’t know nearly as much as you do about the project. They haven’t been briefed or had it explained to them like you have. When you give them the quick-and-dirty rundown of your project, some information is likely to get lost in translation, and a misunderstanding of the end goal is bound to happen. The quote you’ll get won’t always match up with what you had in mind, and might be different when you go to purchase your machinery. Then you’re finding yourself spending more money and time to figure out what it actually is, or even worse, buying the wrong machinery for your project.

Sometimes efficiency doesn’t mean getting things done as fast as possible. Efficiency is about getting the entire job done with as little time and effort possible. When you keep the big-picture in mind, spending more time in the beginning stages makes the most amount of sense.

Sitting down with the experts at Frain will allow you to understand all of your options. More importantly, they can also allow you to be flexible. Working with tight budgets and aggressive time constraints can be tough, and Frain understands that. We’ll walk you through each step of your buying process (which includes us getting to know your project), so that we can meet your needs and allow your company to be as efficient as possible. We want your project to succeed, and we’re here to help.

Don’t settle for being effective, when efficiency matters most.