INSYSTED - Serious Games to Teach Hand-on Operations Management

The open-source platform INSYSTED (Integrated System for European Digital Learning) is currently being developed in a consortium of Technische Universität Berlin, University College London, Politecnico di Milano, and CentraleSupélec in Paris. The INSYSTED platform supports lecturers in creating, playing, and sharing serious games. In this workshop, we want to briefly introduce the INSYSTED framework and illustrate its application, using a serious game focusing on Operations Management.

Operations management is a quantitative core area of Industrial Engineering and Management education where students need to
tackle the stochastic-dynamic interdependencies of processes within a supply network. In order to do so, students need to acquire a deep understanding of the underlying theortical concepts, methods, and tools. This is especially challenging for students at an introductory level. The heterogeneous knowledge and interests as well as the sheer number of participants in typical introductory courses urgently require new solutions for personalized learning.

Against this background, a serious game was developed at Technische Universität Berlin. Here, problem-oriented, quantitative methods of operations management are taught – using a virtual learning factory. In subsequent game levels, students are confronted with different challenges of everyday production based on the progress of the course, experience system dynamics, and improve their analytical skills.

In this workshop we want to introduce the simulation game, user management and learning management system integration, as well as show teachers how they can adapt the game to their individual teaching needs. Teachers should gain access to the platform and be able to setup their own games, the workshop will be followed by subsequent support sessions.