Operations Management: Processes and Supply Chains, 12th Edition

Developing Learning Curves

In the following discussion and applications, we focus on direct labor hours per unit, although we could as easily have used costs. When we develop a learning curve, we make the following assumptions:

• The direct labor required to produce the $n+1$ unit will always be less than the direct labor required for the nth unit.

• Direct labor requirements will decrease at a declining rate as cumulative production increases.

• The reduction in time will follow an exponential curve.

In other words, the production time per unit is reduced by a fixed percentage each time production is doubled. We can use a logarithmic model to draw a learning curve. The direct labor required for the nth unit, $k_n,$ is

$$k_n=k_1{n}^b$$