A company is preparing a bid on a government contract for 40 units of a certain product. The operations manager estimates the assembly time required for the first two units to be 10.4 hours and 8.3 hours, respectively

a. What is the appropriate learning curve?
b. What is the average time per unit for the 40 units?
c. Which unit, if any, will require approximately one-half the time of the first unit?

(a) The learning curve is 8.3/10.4 = 0.798 or approximately 80%.
(b) The group of 40 units will take 10.4 ? 17.193 = 178.8 hours total, for an average of 4.47 hours each.
(c) The 9th unit has a unit time factor of 0.493, meaning that it requires approximately 50% of the labor of the first unit.