Lean Factory
Simulation Game
Experience Design for Virtual Reality.
Between August 2021 and October 2021, at Gemba, I designed a bespoke factory simulation game in VR running on the Meta Quest 2. This enabled our customer to scale-up their enterprise lean programme while delivering a more engaging and effective experience for their learners.
RESPONSIBILITIES
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LEARNING EXPERIENCE DESIGN
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VR UX & UI DESIGN
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PROJECT COORDINATION
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CONSULTING CLIENT
The Project In Numbers
10000+
EXPECTED USERS
+450H
CLIENT TRAVEL TIME SAVED IN YR1
57H
DESIGNING THE EXPERIENCE
4
TEAM
MEMBERS
THE BACKGROUND
Aptiv asked us to create a VR version of the widely known Paperplane Factory Game.
We have been working with Aptiv for over 3 years to re-create their entire Lean curriculum in VR with a mixture of standalone and multi-user experiences.
Lean is used by most manufacturers to create value with fewer resources and less waste. It's practice consists of continuous experimentation to achieve the most value with zero waste. Aptiv instils this practice with all of its 180,000 employees.
However, traditionally Lean is taught on the factory floor or in the classroom. Due to the pandemic, to reach and engage easier global employees and to scale a standardised programme, VR was the best solution.
The traditional Paperplane Factory Game is a simple but highly effective tool to teach and inspire the use of Continuous Improvement best practices.
A 7-STEP DESIGN PROCESS
1. Research the game and the subject matter it is covering using secondary materials and by enacting it in person.
2. Prototype the space in Unity 3D (see image above).
3. Map & design all the different continuous improvement combinations that could be chosen by users.
4. Prepare Technical Design Document for Devs, gather feedback and iterate to minimise technical limitations.
5. Create Concept Design Document for customer, integrate their feedback and get customer sign-off.
6. Brief the Dev, Art & QA teams, agree on delivery timeline and handover the project.
7. Run the game in VR with users and tinker the experience to adjust difficulty levels.
The image on the right shows the different production lines with various difficulty levels from bottom to top decreasing difficulty.
OVERCOMING LIMITATIONS
This simulation came with a large variety of interesting challenges that needed to be overcome through design. A few include:
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folding papers in VR is tricky for users, so it was replaced with assembling a rocket;
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designing 100+ combinations of continuous improvement choices to ensure these are exhaustive enough to cover anything that the users might consider
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as it was a busy simulation with 28 users in the same scene on the Quest 2, we had to find creative approaches to limit the number of objects in the scene due to drawcalls and to achieve consistent 72 fps;
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with 3 teams of 8 people each playing the game in parallel to increase competition and all of them talking to each-other in the same space, we decreased the spatial sounding but increased the size of the scoring board so they can easily see where teams are compared with the other teams.
These were only a few of the interesting facts about designing this simulation. Click on the images on the right and read the captions for more.
MULTI-PLAYER LEARNING GAME
The experience included all key components of a game while providing a multi-user learning experience.
Goals
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Be the team with the largest number of completed rockets on the score board to win the game;
Rules
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All three teams (6-8 players each) start and end at the same time;
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The game has 3 rounds where each team can make no more than 3 improvements to their production line;
Challenge
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Teams starts with a sub-optimal production line which will be improved in each round through a team 'Kaizen'; A Kaizen is a session between rounds where each team deliberates which 3 improvements to prioritise for biggest impact;
Interaction
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Each player within a team has a specific role and activity they need to perform;
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Players within a team collaborate to optimise the production line to enable them to complete the most rockets.
LEARNING BY DOING IN VR
The power of this simulation comes from its ability to take the basic concept of a factory and show users the direct results and consequences of their choices.
Users are empowered to exert direct impact on the processes and sometimes that is quite hard to see in real life where there are more people on teams.
This experience was proven to be a good team bonding exercise. Even though users coming into the experience were a bit reluctant, most of the silos and divergences disappear after the first round. During the second round they start communicating really well and in round three they start to perform brilliantly and work together as a cohesive team.
It is the only VR simulation I have seen so far which is able to bring people so closely together, empowering them while enabling them to work seamlessly and unite with a common goal.