Productivity is the single most important indicator of the operating efficiency of a manufacturing enterprise, since it links the value of output generated to the resources consumed in generating it. This paper examines the productivity performance of Tata Steel Limited (standalone, India operations), Asia's oldest integrated private steel producer, over a ten-year period from 2016-17 to 2025-26. Using sales as the measure of output and materials, labour (employee cost) and overheads as the three principal inputs, the paper computes material productivity, labour productivity, overhead productivity and total factor productivity ratios for each year of the study period. Actual productivity indices (base year 2016-17 = 100) are compared with the linear trend values obtained through the least-squares method (Y = a + bX), and the goodness of fit between the actual and trend series is tested using the Chi-square test. The results show that while labour productivity and overhead productivity of the company have registered a statistically significant improving trend, material productivity has declined sharply, driven largely by volatile raw-material and coking-coal prices and the post-2022 corporate amalgamations that enlarged the base of materials consumed. The paper concludes with suggestions for strengthening material productivity while sustaining the gains already achieved in labour and overhead efficiency.
Article DOI: 10.62823/IJIRA/06.3(II).9498