Page 4 - Ideas
P. 4
When faced with a challenging concept, most learners
appreciate being able to think it over, practise applying it
and get feedback on their level of understanding.
Assistant Professor Fang Xin sought to provide students
of his Operations Management class with precisely such
an opportunity by developing a game (aptly entitled the
Capacity Game) that allows the students to apply difficult
concepts of capacity planning and optimisation, and to
visualise the ensuing results.
Previously, Fang Xin would introduce the relevant
concepts and students would discuss potential plans for
different demand scenarios. Based on the discussions, he
would use programming to illustrate how optimisation
would help achieve a higher level of profit. However, with
this teaching method, students struggled to understand
the gap between their proposed decisions and the
optimal decisions.
FANG Xin Having observed that “students feel they know better
Assistant Professor of Operations Management when they know what is happening in practice, beyond
Lee Kong Chian School of Business the theoretical model”, Fang Xin set about
Singapore Management University conceptualising a better way to teach this area and hit
upon the idea of using a game. He chose not to direct
“Students feel they know better when they know what them to commercially available options but instead,
is happening in practice, beyond the theoretical model.” decided to take it upon himself to develop an in-house
version that could be used and re-used to benefit
students and instructors in SMU without imposing a
monetary burden on them.
