Final answer:
The learning curve equation for unit production time is TM⋅(N/M)b. To find the learning curve exponent (b), use the formula b = ln2/lnR. Plug in the value of b into the equation to calculate the unit production time.
Step-by-step explanation:
The learning curve equation that represents the unit production time is given by TM⋅(N/M)b (Equation 1), where TM is the unit production time for the Mth unit produced, TN is the unit production time for the Nth unit produced, N and M are the numbers of units produced (cumulative production), and b is the learning curve exponent.
To find the learning curve exponent (b), we can use the formula b = ln2/lnR, where R is the learning curve percentage or factor. For example, if R is 0.8 (indicating that the unit production time will be less than 80% of the production time of the first product), then b can be calculated as b = ln2/ln0.8.
Once we have the value of b, we can plug it into the learning curve equation (Equation 1) to calculate the unit production time for any specific Nth unit produced given the cumulative production (M).