Interactive Gaming: A Production Example

Abstract

"Over the past ten years considerable attention has been focused on the problem of production line balancing. Numerous computer algorithms have been developed for determining either an exact or approximate balance [1]. Despite the number of computer routines available, much of the balancing has been performed either manually or by trial and error--in a study made in 1969 Lehman found that less than 20% of the industry surveyed employed a computerized balancing system [2]. A key reason for this is the lack of understanding [3, p. iii]. Quite often valid techniques have been developed, but remained unused because the technique was not fully understood by the production manager. A manager thus may elect to live with the balancing problem rather than accept a solution that is foreign and suspicious. It has been the author’s experience that interactive gaming can be used to resolve some of the “lack of understanding” of defined solution techniques for solving certain production problems. This research specifically reports and demonstrates how interactive gaming was used to expose production managers to a production line balancing technique1."