Parade Plus: A Simulation Game for Investigating and Teaching Strategies for Managing Production Variability and Dependence

摘要

The "Parade of Trades" simulation is a well-known educational tool that illustrates the effect of dependence and variation on the performance of a production process. The "Parade of Trades" illustrates that when the production variability of interdependent trades increases, both the project duration and the trades' production losses increase. This paper describes and demonstrates an enhancement of the "Parade of Trades" simulation. The enhancement involves assigning a cost to reflect the cost of planning for different levels of variability. The addition of this parameter makes it possible to use the Parade game to explore new issues: (1) The relation between planning costs, delays and production losses; and (2) the distribution of planning effort and benefits among the process participants. The paper describes the rules of the modified game and simulates different strategies in a computer model. Such strategies involve decisions to increase the planning in order to reduce variability. The simulations demonstrate alternatives scenarios and evaluate the cost of planning against the benefits of reduced waste and delays for the different project trades. As a result, the Parade of Trades is used to raise several issues related to the costs and benefits of increased reliability, the allocation of planning costs and benefits between the participants, and the need to align the trades' planning efforts with the project interests. This increases the value of the Parade of Trades as an educational tool.