The effects of gamification for manufacturing (GfM) on workers and production in industrial assembly

Gamification has been a growing topic of interest in recent years across many fields, especially marketing, healthcare, and education. More recently, researchers of manufacturing and production have begun exploring the potential applications of gamification for manufacturing, to improve psychological well-being of the workers and overall productivity. However, empirical research to support gamification for manufacturing remained scarce. In this research, a detailed methodology was developed to apply gamification to an assembly task and thorough empirical analysis was conducted. The experimental setup utilized a build kit for a Lego Telehandler (kit #42,133). Cycle time data, Myers Briggs Type Indicators, and NASA TLX assessment data from 20 participants for 15 repetitive builds were collected, with data collection amassing well over 110 h and approximately 1,100 data points. The results indicated that gamification has a significant effect on the productivity for the last build in a series of assembly tasks, temporal demand at the first build, and multiple task load ratings over time. While statistical significance was not found for other conducted analyses, thorough discussions regarding trends within the data and limitations of the study indicate that gamification for manufacturing would likely benefit from additional, similar empirical research. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study that systematically evaluates gamification as a possible manufacturing productivity improvement tool by considering key manufacturing metrics (cycle time), task load of the operator, and operator -specific attributes (personality). The study contributes to the body of knowledge by providing an in-depth analysis of an empirical study that is repeatable by others to continue building empirical evidence for manufacturing assembly tasks.