Flowcasting

Been a long time since we looked at JDA's Flowcasting system.  We examined it even before its acquisition by JDA.  Still don't know too many people who have been exposed to it.  So when I happened on this piece in JDA's blog was worthwhile to look at it again, with the help of a well known supply chain game.    Have reconnected to their blog.

The Power of Flowcasting: Live Supply Planning Collaboration & Analytics – Part 1
By Tom Drake-Supply Chain, Supply Chain Management-  

It’s been a few months since I shared the learnings we’ve garnered from our Collaborative Flow Planning workshop – AKA – The Beer Game. Most supply chain professionals are familiar with this game and the supply chain planning pitfalls it exposes. Today, I’d like to focus on the second part of the game that was played, which was enabled by the Collaboration Workbench platform in JDA Flowcasting. We’re going to take a deeper look at how this platform was used to cut costs by two-thirds compared to those playing the game without the help of JDA Flowcasting  .... "

City Building Games. In the Enterprise.

I mention this not because I am a Sim City game player, but because I was asked several times to figure out how I could build something similar to model the enterprise.

Our own enterprise had a long history of having simulation games to train new hires, and people that were changing jobs to those that needed more strategic understanding.   These systems started with the simplest text interactions.  And evolved to very visual industrial sims.   With the warning that these games were rarely accurately predictive.  Or included enough context.  

Here Ars Technica looks at the history of city building games, not too different in goals and limitations.  Does anyone have input?  Will an IOT world allow us to attach such models to the real world?  That has been mentioned for more focused games, like the supply chain 'Beer game'.   Making them more accurate and real time?

Internet of Things v Beer Game

Have played the MIT beer game a number of times for demonstrating supply chain applications. Even used it as a simulation base for gamification tests.  Now can it be part of the internet of things?   In the Cisco Blog. 

Games Talk: Serious Play

I will be giving a talk this Wednesday July 20, at 6:30 PM in the Cincinnati area on the use of serious game mechanics.    Providing details of a number of examples we experimented with in the enterprise that used interal and external facing approaches. 

Here is the invite from Joshua Johnson of Mindbox Studios,  Join us.

Founders & Tech Professionals,

We're not taking any breaks in the momentum experienced from the 2011 CW Startup Showcase. This month we hear from a " Gamification " aficionado and mathematician,  Franz Dill, to talk to us about the emerging gaming or "Serious Play" methods used by the best gaming companies–inspiring some ideas for our community as many of our startups consider gaming as a primary tool for user engagement.

We will also showcase a few companies in our community that have used gaming to attract and engage users. If you have a project or startup using gaming as a core or ancillary feature of your product, come! As always, there will be a time to share ideas and experiences that hopefully lead to better gamification ideas for web startups in Cincinnati.

This month we're meeting at the Cock & Bull in Hyde Park Square. There Mindbox Studios is sponsoring a few pitchers of beer and some appetizers. Bring your appetite, eat some food, buy some drinks, and enjoy another great night at Continuous Web.

RSVP HERE >

Beer Games and Engagement Models

Some work activities today made me re-visit the MIT Beer Game. I have some fond memories of participating in this game back in the 90s. Also recall some work being done on an agent-based advanced, multi-SKU version being developed by members of the Santa Fe Institute, have to look that one up. A good example of a simple game leading to complex behavior. This is required reading for folks new to supply chain. This brings to mind what I call 'engagement models', used to introduce folks to a domain, usually very visual, but which are not intended to be predictive. I have seen these to be quite valuable in industry. The Sim models are examples, but perhaps more complex than they need to be to represent this modeling approach.