New Directions in Supply Chain Management

Chapter 12

Experience-Based Productivity Improvements in Project Environments

Tonya Boone

The College of William and Mary

INTRODUCTION

SINCE THEIR DISCOVERY IN MID-TWENTIETH century, experience (or learning) curves have become an essential part of the management lexicon. The regular, dependable productivity improvements associated with accumulating perceptible experience based productivity improvements are now an essential part of the strategy planning process. For example, a predictable experience curve enables an organization to better match production to demand, to more accurately budget production costs, and to use experience-based improvements to aggressively price products (Dutton and Thomas 1984). Experience curve parameters allow organizations ...