There is no question that factory automation has greatly increased manufacturing productivity, as well as having enabled the manufacture of products that could not otherwise be made. However, it has not been possible to show that office automation has added one bit to office productivity - Paul Strassman, former DoD CIO has demonstrated as much with actual calculations. What has happened is that office workers are doing more kinds of jobs themselves now that they have computer spread sheets, word processors, drawing programs, and the like. The valueless bureaucratic paperwork is now produced in greater abundance by fewer people. The nature of office work has been changed by office automation - whether it is more or less productive than it was before automation is a different question to which there is no clear answer.
Productivity takes on New Face.