The purpose of The Production Planning Game, affectionately known by students at Virginia Tech as The Game, is to teach the interactions between planning decisions and the resulting performance measures, such as inventory levels, resource levels, costs, and profits, for a production system. Originally motivated by Ammar and Wright (1999), The Game has been tailored and expanded to address additional learning objectives for the Industrial and Systems Engineering program at Virginia Tech.

Historically, The Game was played manually with paper products, checks, and transactions, requiring substantial time and space resources for classes of 200+ students. In Spring 2020, Dr. Kimberly Ellis and Dr. Natalie Cherbaka initiated an effort to digitize and improve The Game, collaborating with students Andrew Thomas ('19, '20), Matthew Garlington ('20), Ben LaBine ('19), and Melissa Tilashalski ('23).

Implementing the digitized version of The Game successfully achieved the primary concern of reducing the resources necessary to execute; moreover, student learning was enhanced through smaller team sizes, more realistic production scenarios, iterative engagement, focus on team collaboration, and the reduction of tasks unrelated to learning outcomes.

In 2024-2025, a group of undergraduate students, Maguire McMahon ('25), Sophia Yoon ('25), Timothy Yang ('25), Allison Hubbard ('27), and Makayla Wonbat ('25), collaborated with Dr. Cherbaka and Dr. Ellis to improve the user experience of playing The Game digitally. The team developed a new interface and product storyline to improve usability, the student experience, and learning outcomes. The team conducted both quantitative and qualitative usability testing to both motivate and confirm the success of the new design.

The Game has been part of the Virginia Tech curriculum for 25 years, and the latest evolution is now available for use by others. Please reach out for a demo, questions, or to gain access.