The BPOS Game
Business Process Operations Simulation Game
The Business Process Operations Simulation Game acts as VEHICLE to educate practitioners and students to understand, to learn, and to apply various highly relevant topics within the industry while using applications in a playful, realistic real-world setting.
- Valuable at any level of an enterprise – from a CxO level to employees on the shop floor.
- Realistic setup: Vertical and horizontal relations affect daily activities and the financial performance.
- A five-dimensional framework guides value creation
- BPOS differs from well-known simulation games by its setup and usage of simulation engines creating a realistic scenario!
The BPOS Game
Its Usage as Vehicle for Education
Educate practitioners and students to understand, to learn, and to apply various highly relevant topics within the industry while using applications in a playful, realistic real-world setting.
Teachers and Firms´ Academies use BPOS as a vehicle for applied teaching. Weekly assignments build upon each other. BPOS provides material and supports the opportunity to evaluate the learnings.
BPOS is the vehicle to satisfy all levels of the learning pyramid – for beginners (remember) up to experienced practitioners (develop and evaluate).
While Academies use BPOS for onboarding processes or continuous training of employees, universities ensure students´ capabilities and readiness for industrial challenges.
Strategy
Strategy maps as Success Factor
BPOS targets to encourage strategic behavior and data-driven decisions. Using a 5-dimensional strategy map and scorecard enables participants to lead and administer business processes and networks with their partners based on objectives and KPIs.
During the game itself, conflicts occur, facilitating the application of leadership styles and change management theories and findings to solve disputes. Artifacts help participants experience the importance of culture – and reflect existing cultures within their domain, e.g., silo vs. team.
Besides “hard” financial facts, teams can also aspire to measure “soft” aspects such as sustainability, making the conflict between financial performance and the environment visible – or even better – develop environmental services in line with the chosen strategy.
Management
Master many various business activities
Playing BPOS requires participants to master a variety of business processes—for example, forecasting customer orders with high accuracy, production planning, ordering, and delivering. In addition, the S&OP process enhances participants to manage the financial impact and ensure the wealth of their firm.
The team needs to opt for governance policies (RASI) for the existing business processes and discuss the implementation of communication structures and knowledge management solutions – helping in case of unforeseen events such as participants‘ illness (redundancy of knowledge/capabilities).
Decide on how, or if, participants set up collaboration using insights from research and practitioners – such as game theory or developing a path-2-wards collaboration.
Finance and Controlling
BECOME THE MOST VALUABLE FIRM AND NETWORK
BPOS aims to broaden the understanding of business processes and their relations to the financial performance of firms.
Hence, based on the data, players develop a view on accounts, the profit & loss statement, and the balance sheet.
The relation to finance increases the awareness of the impact of decisions at the operational level. Further, it allows participants to self-evaluate their strategy, former choices, and daily activities.
Supply Chain Strategies
Differentiate with knowledge
Develop your supply chain strategies based on your objectives from the strategic/financial dimensions. Ensure a vertical and horizontal integration of partners.
Establish your desired level of agility and flexibility. Act upon your chosen strategy, e.g., build-to-order vs. build-to-stock or JIT vs. JIS vs. Bulk deliveries.
Manage your inventories with defined strategies (t,q|s,q|t,S|s,S) and ensure raw material is available from your suppliers´ side.
Operational Excellence
Adapt according to your strategy
Match demand with supply: Manage your production planning & steering processes to keep your production and tool change costs low. Ensure low inventory costs with high availability of finished goods for delivery – avoid backlog costs.
Decide to invest in new machines (mass production) or reduce tool change times (lean management), e.g., use forecasts to level your production and measure your (supplier) performance based on leveled orders.
Business Analytics and Intelligence
Ensure a culture of Data-driven decisions
Establish OLAP and ETL procedures to, e.g., apply algorithms and establish forecasting procedures helping your team to succeed with the current strategy.
Develop dashboards for individuals and the team (details vs. aggregation). Consider requirements and needs for each role in your team.
Discuss data gathering and analytical (governance) processes such as CRISP-DM or Davenport concerning the usefulness of a BICC.
Experiment with machine learning and artificial intelligence solutions and automate your processes to avoid pressure on your team and for your decisions.
SRM & CRM
Quality-, Risk management & Sustainability
Calculate your CO2 emissions and discuss sourcing and delivery options regarding sustainability. Analyze occurring risks within the Plan, Source, Make and Deliver dimensions.
Develop 8D-reports, FMEA´s, and establish risk management processes and policies supported by IS systems.
Single vs. dual sourcing: Analyze profitability and develop sourcing strategies. One or two sales channels: Calculate sales opportunities, margins and consider effects on your financial performance.
Digital Twin
We introduce the option to visualize the network with a digital twin
As there are different forms of digital twins, we introduce a digital supply chain twin enabling users to experience the physical flow between locations. Players can use that visualization for better decision making and transparency among the nodes and levels of the supply chain.
Gen AI & Bots
Integration of Gen AI and Chatbots to improve your experience
We integrated a chatbot solution that allows users to understand the aim of the business processes faster and focus on more relevant aspects such as defining a strategy.
However, the instructor is able to switch off the functionality, if the focus is on establishing basic knowledge in the taught fields.
Further, our Gen AI helps to derive new insights and contributes to the same experience (and issues) in the industry. The same here: The instructor can switch the functionality on or off .
Instructors´ support
We are here to make teaching a success
We provide learning resources for instructors such as slides, videos, interactive elements (exercises, quizzes, etc.). In addition, we offer the usage of dashboards to compare the performance of teams and networks. Furthermore, BPOS is completely adaptable to many industries due to its flexible customization options.
Customization, Views, and Post-game analysis
Get in Touch
Feel free to contact us for a free trial or any further questions that occur
Getting started
Shape the Future
Train-the-Trainer seminars are available including flipped classroom learning material. Depending on your needs and wishes, different service levels are available upon agreement – ensure the best education you can!
