Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Learning Curve
Learning Curve
Learning Curve
of units produced or task performed over time. OR The term learning curve refers to a graphical representation of the changing rate of learning for a given activity or tool.
1 hr
25
5 PIECE 1 23
4 PIECE 2 EFFICIENCY
2 hrs
1885:
German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus coined the term during his research on memory and memorization.
1930:
Learning curves were first used by the aircraft industry . The Boeing Co. pioneered the discipline when it discovered that the cost to build new airplanes was highly predictable.
1936 :
At Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in the United States, it was determined that every time total aircraft production doubled, the required labour time decreased by 10 to 15 percent.
Airplane Industry.
Theodore Paul Wright in 1936.
Number of Airplane Cost of production
The more the airplane produced, the lesser the cost of production
The learning curve effect states that the more often a task is performed ,the less time will be required for each iterartion. Eg: Aircraft manufacturing Ship building Bridge construction Chemical/cement projects New product development
Application
Business
Non-Business
Service
Manufacturing
Labour efficiency Standardization, specialization, and methods improvements Technology-Driven Learning Changes in the resource mix Value chain effects
LEARNING CURVE
Faster learning rate Large gain of knowledge in early stage Rules are simple and quickly learned Eg:chess,sports
Rate of knowledge is slowly spaced Gives ample time to imprint procedure and skill eg: a new entrepreneur or businessman
Learning slowly at first Learning is accelerating Low forgetting rate Low employee turn-over in company
Learning progresses at first and is slow later on. Learning rate is slow. High forgetting rate. High employee turn-over in company.
Capacity analysis and resourse planning Cost reduction proposal pricing Direct labour cost Break-even estimation Incentives for aggressive pricing in the early phase of product life cycle.
Depends on many assumptions Not accurate Not always applicable to indirect labour Old technique Not applicable to complex process
Labor learns as it works, and the more a worker repeats a given task, the more efficient the worker will become Hartley(1965)