Gamification and Simulation: Distance Education for Industrial Engineering Students

The COVID-19 health crisis restrictions affecting Industrial Engineering students doing internships in laboratories and companies with training partners challenged teachers to design realistic, alternative activities where students could apply the knowledge acquired in the classroom. In this situation, the VEP (Virtual Enterprise Planning) simulator was born, which replicates the processes of a car assembly plant using ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) with elements including quality, statistics, experiment design, and problem-solving. This research involved developing the simulator design processes from ideation prototyping to product release. The simulator objective was for the students to learn specific Industrial Engineering topics about car assembly through gamification. A secondary goal was to offer students a platform to apply classroom learning to substitute factory projects and practices. Using gamification strategy, we improved learning, developed students' competencies, and increased motivation in our students. In addition, we used Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality(AR) technologies to enable the students to experience the processes and products of the Meccanos manufacturing plant. To date, 365 students have been impacted by the use of the virtual plant.