A Tiny Production-to-Cost Game for Developing from Customers to Engineers

Abstract

"You could play a 20-minute demonstration of this tiny paper-based (letter or A4 size sheets) business game for undergraduates to study engineering and technology related subjects as advancing to the following academic years. As we are facing dynamic social and economic changes, this tiny game is aimed at developing from customer’s attitude they have learned to engineer’s attitude they should learn, and then can be an entrance to business games needing undergraduate and postgraduate level technology management knowledge to play. This game which is played by a single player would be one of the appropriate pre-games to, for example, “Beer Game” which is played by a group of players. It is warned by many Japanese scholars in educational sociology that a new generation of students has begun to enroll in higher educational establishments. They are born not only as an excellent learner of a mother tongue but also as a rich customer from birth, because they have “six pockets” implying parents’ ones, two grandfathers’ ones, and two grandmothers’ ones. In the shrinking market, they are best customers and can enjoy the privilege of consumers, which means it is with no cost or work and with pleasure that they can get instantly whatever they want. Besides, the hard work of studying engineering and technology subjects is avoided to take by those students. This is the point the scholars argue. Needless to say, playing this tinny game is enjoyable and also this game exercised at the earliest stage of engineering and technology education is a try to spoil the above imprinting in order that they would be able to play sophisticated business games for advanced years without losing interest about the needs of competitive markets on which most students do not show interest. In this presentation, another game called “A Tiny Price-to-Cost Game for Developing from Customers to Managers,” already demonstrated at ABSEL2013, for business students is explained as a twin of the above game. Both games can be used easily for both type students who should realize the dynamics of supply chain management because the core of the two models is almost the same. You can direct this game in lecture-oriented rooms because it is a single-player game. Would you join this demonstration? "