Art Binley has decided to look at his productivity from a multi factor (total factor productivity) perspective (refer to Solved Problem 1.1). To do so, he has determined his labor, capital, energy, and material usage and decided to use dollars as the common denominator. His total laborhours are now 300 per day and will increase to 308 per day. His capital and energy costs will remain constant at \($350\) and \($150\) per day, respectively. Material costs for the 100 logs per day are \($1,000\) and will remain the same. Because he pays an average of \($10\) per hour (with fringes), Binley determines his productivity increase as follows:

Data From Problem 1.1

Productivity can be measured in a variety of ways, such as by labor, capital, energy, material usage, and so on. At Modern Lumber, Inc., Art Binley, president and producer of apple crates sold to growers, has been able, with his current equipment, to produce 240 crates per 100 logs. He currently purchases 100 logs per day, and each log requires 3 labor-hours to process. He believes that he can hire a professional buyer who can buy a better-quality log at the same cost. If this is the case, he can increase his production to 260 crates per 100 logs. His labor-hours will increase by 8 hours per day.
What will be the impact on productivity (measured in crates per labor-hour) if the buyer is hired?