Experience Curve Analysis

Experience curve analysis describes and projects how the real unit cost of a product falls by a roughly constant percentage every time cumulative production volume doubles, and draws the strategic consequences for cost position and pricing. The Boston Consulting Group, under Bruce Henderson, generalized the older manufacturing learning curve in the late 1960s and 1970s into the broader 'experience curve,' covering not just direct labor but all value-added costs, and made it the analytical backbone of its strategy advice — including the growth-share matrix's premise that the high-relative-share firm enjoys a cost advantage. Louis Yelle's 1979 Decision Sciences survey reviewed the underlying learning-curve literature and its mathematics, while Barry Hedley's 1977 article tied the experience-curve cost logic to portfolio strategy. The method fits a power-law relationship between unit cost and accumulated volume and uses the estimated learning rate to forecast costs and inform competitive strategy.