Operations Management MD021

1. Operations Management(MD021) Learning Curves

2. Agenda The Learning Effect and Learning Curves Applications of Learning Curves

3. The Learning Effect and Learning Curves

4. Learning Effect Learning Effect: the time required to perform a task decreases with increasing repetitions Initially larger decreases per unit Time reduction per unit becomes less and less as the number of repetitions increases Learning Curve: a curve that graphs the outcome of the Learning Effect

5. Learning Effect

6. Learning with Improvements

7. Equations for the Learning Curve

8. Applications of Learning Curves

9. Applications of Learning Curves Manpower planning and scheduling Negotiated purchasing Pricing new products Budgeting, purchasing, and inventory planning Capacity Planning

10. Worker Learning Curves

11. Cautions and Criticisms about Learning Curves Learning rates may differ from organization to organization Projections based on learning curves should be viewed as approximations Estimates based the first unit should be checked for valid times

12. Cautions and Criticisms about Learning Curves At some point the curve might level off or even tip upward Some improvements may be more apparent than real For the most part, the concept does not apply to mass production