Learning Curve
Learning curve is defined as “a curve plotting performance against practice; especially: one graphing decline in unit costs with cumulative output” (Merriam-Webster). It is a concept that was derived in the early nineteenth century. It focuses on an idea that as people gain experience in doing a task, they gain enough understanding of the process that they are able to do it more efficiently and in lesser time than before. For instance, imagine a person cooking pasta. At first he would take more time in reading the recipe and going through the steps correctly, which will be more time consuming. Now, if he tries the same thing 2-3 times in a week he will get (1) more efficient (2) faster (3) and more effective in creating the pasta. Perhaps he is using better tools or has managed to improve his sequence of the steps due to repetition, so he has experienced a learning curve. Managers started using learning curve model to increase efficiency and effectiveness in several different organizations. Learning curve is not confined to one company or industry. It does not consider the size of the operation, large or small. It is an analytical tool that can be used to estimate the rate at which the cumulative experience allows workers to do tasks faster and while keeping the costs to the minimum. In recent times Toyota has applied the learning curve very efficiently in recent times. They started this process by introducing assembly lines which kept the products in order and sequenced them in such a way that saved time and costs, while keeping the quality to its maximum. Similarly, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton Ohio observed that workers in the manufacturing department showed a definite learning pattern. “He noted that most aircraft manufacturing tasks experienced what he