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The Global Warming Interactive Simulation is a serious game that explores the relationship of global warming to economic, political, and science policy decisions.

The simulation, developed by a nine person team headed by Professor Michael Hillinger (and simulated using Forio Broadcast), takes into account social and economic variables such as development of alternative energy sources, taxes on carbon production, unemployment levels, and even public opinion.

You assume the roles of scientific, policy, or economic advisors in Brazil. The time is 1960 and the world is as yet unaware of the impacts development will have on the global environment. For the next 100 years you will be responsible for managing some of the decisions made by the Brazilian Government. If you choose wisely you can guide Brazil to a path of sustainable development and insure that the world 100 years from now is a place we would want to live.

You can make policy decisions, allocate budgets, set taxes, and protect land. Based on your decisions, the game triggers events you would expect in the real world. Did your fossil fuel use drop? You may get a complimentary email from the country’s president. Did your carbon tax cause a sharp increase in unemployment? You may see a video clip from the “Action Newsroom” showing popular discontent with your actions.

This game was developed with a grant from National Science Foundation (award #0441330)

Advergaming is the practice of using computer games to advertise a product or service. This year, Oracle, through Grey Advertising, commissioned Forio to develop an advertising simulation (adversim) that explains how Oracle’s ERP systems and databases can improve Lean Manufacturing.

Like other companies that sell sophisticated products and services, Oracle has traditionally offered white papers through its website as a way to educate potential customers and generate leads. This year Oracle decided to experiment with a more interactive approach through the Lean Manufacturing Simulation.

While advergames have been targeted to consumers, adversims are targeted to businesses. Adversims help managers learn about products and services by allowing managers to experiment with tactics and strategies in an engaging way.

In The Lean Manufacturing Simulation, you are the director of a US-based plant that manufactures hybrid cars. Your manufacturing plant is in trouble. Senior management is concerned about high delivery delays, excessive inventories, unpredictable supplier performance, and a wide variation in production levels.

You’ve been charged with implementing a Lean Manufacturing program with an objective of resolving these concerns. You have eight months to fix the problems at your plant.

You can schedule production with either a Push system based on long-term forecasts or a Pull system in which you change production month by month. You will be scored on how well you provide reliable deliveries to customers, keep inventories low, and maintain level production.

This simulation, developed by Harvard Business School professor Rogelio Oliva, analyzes the service capability of organizations with experienced and inexperienced staff. Many service organizations rely on specific skill sets that need to be developed through apprenticeship and on the job training. Under these circumstances, personnel development consumes a significant fraction of organizational resources and limits the organization’s growth rate. This simulator permits to assess the impact of different growth scenarios on the service capability (productivity) in this type of organizations.

What is the true cost of business travel? The Travel Fatigue Calculator developed by Industrial Organizational Psychologist Dr. Joel Widzer estimates your full costs of travel based on travel fatigue. You will be asked to enter information about your compensation and upcoming trip. You can use this model to assess an individual employee’s cost per trip or organizational cost by entering mean averages of annual travel indicators.

Dr. Jack Homer’s syndemic simulation explores how three mutually compounding afflictions can interact within a community. Medical anthropologist Merrill Singer used the term “syndemic” to describe simultaneous and mutually reinforcing epidemics of substance abuse, violence, and AIDS among America’s inner city poor. In the simulation, general community conditions are only mediocre and not supportive of healthy living, so there exists a threat of a growing “syndemic”. Your goal is to minimize the community’s burden of affliction over a twenty year period.

A relatively poor and powerless community finds itself beset with multiple health afflictions and adverse living conditions. Although the community has employed various programs to keep things from getting worse, the problems are also not getting any better. Outside agencies could help by offering three broad types of assistance. Your goal is to reduce the community’s burden of affliction (the average number of unhealthy days per person per year) as much as possible both during and after assistance.

Simulation developed by Dr. Jack Homer for the Syndemics Prevention Network of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

A copy of the model (PDF) and the equations (PDF) are available for download.