An interactive simulation-based game of a manufacturing process in heavy industry

Abstract

The modernization of industrial manufacturing processes has been driven by sophisticated equipment aimed at very large scale productions. For workers, this often has meant learning new and highly specific skills on-the-job, as they adapt to the new machinery. Additionally, the knowledge of most industrial pipelines is scattered among the many workers involved. Current training methods only partly solve the problem, as they tend to be time-intensive, expensive, still potentially hazardous and focused on specific tasks. In this regard, interactive simulation-based games have attracted much attention, and are being considered as a useful tool for improving operational task training and education through operations close to real-world experience. In this work, we present a simulation-based game of steel plates stamping for the heavy industry, describing the main components of the learning environment and the several game resources. An UX evaluation with 13 heavy equipment operators in their actual industrial environment was performed. Moreover, the results show that simulation based methods can be used to provide a global understanding of the entire production pipeline for all employees, instead of a focused effort on just ground-level workers or management staff, contributing to create a motivational working environment and, therefore, making learning much more entertaining.