Reference no: EM132290720

Provide an example of efficiency gains through learning effects that you have either experienced or observed. For instance, many years ago I was a dining room attendant in a restaurant for a major hotel chain. In other words, I used to clean tables, place the dirty dishes on one of those brown, oval trays, and take them back to the kitchen to be cleaned. For the first few weeks on the job, I was very inefficient--I could only clean a table or two before the tray was filled and I had to go back to the kitchen to unload it. Going back and forth to the kitchen was a major inefficiency for the restaurant, because people had to wait to be seated. The more people waited, the less turnover of tables occurred-- and this resulted in less money that could be made by the restaurant.

After a few months, I learned several tricks that enabled me to put more and more dishes on a single tray before I had to carry it back to the kitchen. I could probably clean 5-6 tables using a single tray. I was becoming much more efficient. Finally, I got to the point where I could not become any more efficient using existing technology. I knew this when I carried a tray loaded with dishes back to the dish line and when I went to set it down, the tray split from the sheer weight of the dishes. In other words, in this example, I maximized all the learning effects to be had! Please tell us your story.