System Utilization in Service Management

Operations Management Exercise

Operations Management Exercise

Learners manage a service operation that processes insurance policies, balancing flow, capacity, and demand variability across multiple workstations. Through four configurable scenarios, they explore how process design and utilization affect turnaround time, work-in-process, and overall system performance. The simulation brings foundational operations principles—such as Little’s Law and bottleneck analysis—to life through hands-on experimentation and data-driven decision-making. An integrated assessment reinforces key concepts and supports debrief discussion.

Players

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Single Player


Languages

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English


Simulation Time

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Total Time: 40-60 minutes

Intro 5-10 minutes, Gameplay 15-20 minutes, Debrief 20-30 minutes


Accessibility

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No Accessibility Compliance


Price

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$165 per person

The Story

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Learners step into the role of a service operations manager at an insurance firm facing delays and customer complaints. Their task is to diagnose the process—tracking policies as they move through multiple workstations—and test changes to improve turnaround time and output. As the scenarios progress, they experiment with staffing, capacity balancing, and product mix decisions to stabilize performance and prevent the system from collapsing under excess demand. Each decision reveals the tension between efficiency, variability, and responsiveness in real-world operations

Core Competencies

Operational Efficiency

Critical Thinking and Problem Solving

Decision Making Under Pressure

Systems Thinking

Measurement and Analysis

Learning Objectives

Demonstrate the impact of capacity utilization on throughput time and WIP under demand variability.
Reinforce understanding of Little's Law (impact of WIP on throughput time).
Identify bottlenecks in service organizations.
Develop intuition about the effects of demand variability in processing times in a service organization.

Resources to Power Your Simulation

This simulation comes with a Facilitation Guide along with 1:1 facilitator training and free trials.

Available with this simulation

Facilitation Guide

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Free Trial & Demo

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