How to quantify efficiency?

I have a 10th grade education and an awful understanding of math, but while I was working I thought about ways to make our workplace (a scrapyard) more efficient. Things like installing water misters to keep the workers cool in the summer, which would make them work faster and more precisely as a result of the extra comfort. (Some scrapyards already have these, mine doesn't)

But how do you quantify that? How do you come up with the numbers that would say "Installing this would increase work efficiency by X%"? If someone could help me I'd appreciate it.

you dont and you cant
go back to school.

You need to know how much more money would be made per day. Then use the formula:

100 x (new_amount_of_money - old_amount_of_money) / (old_amount_of_money)

Ehh I have a good job, union opportunities, and a small startup composing film scores. I know that education is important and beneficial, but I would rather learn about things I can apply to my world than unrelated academia that doesn't benefit me. Much respect to those who go down the uni route tho.

That makes sense. I could theoretically get those numbers by looking at how many more pounds of a particular metal we sell with the misters on. Would there be no way to estimate the gain-loss without evaluating the workloads post installation?

read a book, go to school, watch a lecture series, do what you gotta do to get that knowledge. afterwards, you will cringe at how dumb the shit you are saying now is.

yeah, go to school just means get learned.
seriously if uni isnt for you read a fucking book.

Unit analysis helps.
Think lbs/hr for how much is moved.
Ballpark it by using wider measuring frames - start with amount per day and divide by the working hours (normally 8).

Lbs/hr times $/lb = $lb/lbhr
= $/hr

Do an experiment one day where the misters mysteriously fail. See how much is moved and compare.

As a warehouse I'm sure you get different prices so price alone can mislead your physical efficiency.

Out of curiosity why not use forklifts?

basically, you need to set yourself a goal and come up with one or two numbers that reliably measure how well you are doing toward that goal.
A common example in industries like yours is electricity usage, record how much energy you are using before you implement your new, efficient procedure and then record how much you are using after you implement it. If you are using less electricity, then your electricity saving procedure was successful and you have become more efficient.
for something like your water mister proposal the obvious things to measure might seem to be worker output vs installation/maintenance costs for the misters, but dont forget that changes you make to workplaces can have multiple effects - some in very unexpected ways! Consider also looking into medical expenses (as the misters reduce the chance of heatstroke) and any damage you may cause to your scrap or equipment by spraying water everywhere.

I'll actually try to get those numbers and see where it leads me. Thank you! And what do you mean about forklifts? We use them everyday haha

Those are great points to consider, thank you very much. That's a lot to consider and I would need some time to put the data together. Not to mention the ability to convince upper management of its benefits.

fuck off back to Veeky Forums, kid

Nvm misread the op. Carry on.

go back to school

you could use probability and statistics
like poisson distributions or something
What's the probability that within some time frame we move some amount of scrap given x,y,z etc.?

Check out aleks.com it costs money but it gives a great assessment of where you are at

Kek

Just make sure that you don't leave any spaces after your answers if they need to be typed in as opposed to clicking a button.

Woah I never said learn from aleks

This is called cost-benefit analysis. It would be under economics as the details of quantifying non-monetary benefits are where you will have to do the thinking. So besides, cooling making workers more efficient, they may be more likely to want to work at your scrapyard, or fewer workers get heat stroke or heat related stress (won't be out for a few days or won't be as tired the next few days), lower costs to your company health plan should you have one, etc. Anyway, if you want to do this kind of thing, you're going to need calculus, probability, and stats. If you're intimidated by words like Markov chains, then you're not going to make it. Also, you're going to have to collect data to run your analysis. If you like it, there are lots of jobs in this sort of thing but be prepared to be frustrated when you can't get people to do things more efficiently because they don't want to spend money, believe their own facts, are politicians, etc.
Anyway, user, if you want to do it, you can assuming that you don't have some sort of mental handicap. Start from the basics of math, then go on to the next thing. Most people fail at math because they have a poor understanding of the prerequisite material and then continue further when they should not do so. If your arithmetic is shit, start there. If you let pride and stubbornness get in your way, then you will fail.
You don't sound particularly stupid so I'd say you have a good shot at this if you want to learn more about this. It's really important to recognize that there are a lot of things to consider and that good data is important. There are lots of shoddy papers that are mathematically okay but done with really poor data and analysis, often times to support some kind of agenda. Remember, you don't have to consider absolutely everything in your first analysis if you don't have good data for it. It's very common to write a paper and then follow up with it over the years as you get more data and ideas.

find real world examples where the solutions have been deployed and then you could contact those locations and directly ask them what they think of the returns on their investment, then pass on the results with citations to your bossman. but health is number one and you could do a survey of the workforce and find out if they would appreciate the changes and why, find out the collective needs (such as a reduction in temperature) and try to make the case that a less-stressed healthier workforce is less worn out and therefore happier and more productive. not really any math required, just peoples word. it wouldn't matter if you had math anyway, it boils down to what actually happens IRL

Not a single one of you freshmen brainlets knows what 'efficiency' actually is.

>union opportunities
Kys

OP here, thank you for the insight! Its obvious that doing something like this soon is beyond my abilities, but maybe I'll be able to have someone do it.

By the way, what are good online resources for learning math? Im probably around the Algebra I level of understanding.

Lol so what does it mean?