TOCICO

Common complaints directed at simulations and games are that they are focused on manufacturing and are often perceived to be too simple to be representative of the real world. The med lab simulation was created to address just these issues. Although it was designed to represent a service environment, it has been used with microbreweries, manufacturers, hospitals and many other entities. It represents an environment with high uncertainty relative to workload from day to day, very restrictive work requirements and the use of multiple shared resources that are in limited supply. There are also response time limits and shelf life limits. There are roles for schedulers, certified test technicians, assistant technicians, test transfer specialists, quality control, apparatus managers, etc. The roles and rules of the simulation are explained and then round one commences with a 20-minute experiment. This is followed by the participants working in small groups to identify what is wrong and what they would recommend be changed to fix the situation. This is followed by a short introduction to key TOC concepts such as the five focusing steps and the need to choke the release a work into the system, Simplified Drum-Buffer-Rope, etc. The group then works to come to consensus and apply the TOC concepts to fix the situation without adding resources or any other changes that would represent significant financial investment and/or process interruption in the real world. It’s one thing to read, or hear a lecture, about a concept. It’s a completely different thing to actually experience it. To experience is to know. Video length: . PDF: slides.