An operations manager claims that one of the production processes he oversees has a learning rate of 88%. One of the new components produced in this production process has the following completion times (in minutes) for the first five units: 55, 45, 40, 37, and 35:

1. Is the manager’s claim of 88% learning rate valid? Support your answer with appropriate calculations.

2. If the manger’s claim is not valid, what is the correct learning rate? By using this learning rate, compute the total time estimate to produce 30 units.