Fraunhofer Institute for Production Systems and Design TechnologyTransformation through a Serious Game
Organizations face the challenge of making transformations such as digitalization profitable. They often begin this process with a focus on technology. It is easy for employees to feel left out, even though 60 percent of the success of a business transformation depends on them.
Employee engagement arises above all when employees can actively shape and experience change. Our serious game »LearnFactory 5.0« provides the environment to try out and learn about process optimization in the company. The Learning Factory is therefore the ideal starting point for upcoming complex change processes.
Learning and understanding process optimization in the Learning Factory
In the Learning Factory, participants work in a fictitious company that manufactures seven different versions of a drill. The factory environment is simulated with building bricks.
During the game, this company is redesigned and optimized in several cycles to achieve better performance, more flexibility, and greater employee satisfaction. The sales, production, assembly, logistics, and planning departments are confronted with challenges such as short-term fluctuations in demand and new product variants, which cause the participants to experience typical moments of frustration. In this way, the emotional aspects of change are combined with methodological and technical skills development.
Participants then try out how to achieve systematic process management in the real world using methods and digital tools. This creates an intuitive and tangible understanding of the requirements and possibilities of systematic process orientation. The step-by-step approach creates skills and orientation in digitized processes. Participants recognize the benefits of model-based integrated (factory) planning and other innovative solutions. In addition, skills for interdisciplinary cooperation are acquired and their application is experienced. The learning effects are applicable for employees in production as well as in public administration.