Newspaper Bin Liner Manufacturing: A Business Game Model for Production Engineering Students

Abstract

This work presents an innovative business game model, focused on the application and critical analysis of concepts in Production Administration and Quality Management. This game was created for didactical purposes, to meet the specific demands of production engineering students in their first years of university. It is based on the dispute of distinct waste basket manufacturers that use newspaper sheets as a raw material, which are obtained through a fictitious financial contribution. The production process is carried out through successive folding of newspaper sheets by the group members, with a predefined time for the manufacture of final product items. The game comprises several stages, with the presentation of financial results at the end of them, followed by learning points discussion and definition of rules for the next round. This learning strategy is innovative and flexible, as it associates low cost, easy arrangement and rapid execution, essential features for any classroom activity. Students’ opinions towards the suggested activity was assessed and discussed based on the answers collected from a questionnaire conducted for this purpose, with the outcome being good acceptance of the game by the students.

Keywords

• Business game
• Quality and production management
• Training.