Understanding and Supporting Decision Makers in Quality Management of Production Networks

Abstract

Quality management is an important aspect of viable manufacturing processes. In order to qualify decision makers to understand the fundamental principles of quality management in production networks, we developed a game-based simulation and learning environment that can furthermore be used to understand how human factors influence the quality of decisions in complex production networks. Previous studies have shown that underlying human factors must exist, that predict the players’ performance, but it is currently unexplored which factors contribute to high performance. To investigate these human factors in more depth and to further refine the quality management serious game, we conducted a series of studies. As expected, expertise had a great impact on performance. However, contrary to our expectations, cognitive skills had no influence. The refined decision dashboard with seamlessly integrated self-adapting visualizations on key performance indicators had a significant positive impact on game performance. Most importantly, the studies suggest that the developed game is a valuable contribution to the vocational training of quality managers as the quality of their decisions is increased.

Keywords: Quality Management, Production Networks, Key Performance Indicators, Decision Support, Human Factors, User Diversity, Information Processing, Reasoning, Game-based Learning, User-centered Design

DOI: 10.54941/ahfe100429