Bringing Gaming To The Manufacturing Floor

Business London Magazine is a local Postmedia edition that publishes a monthly review of local businesses, news and trends covering a wide range of industry sectors. For the November issue, the theme was skilled trades in London with articles touching on local businesses and trade specialists ranging from general contractors, young trade students and prominent female tradespersons.

We were so excited when Business London reached out to us for insight on our ShiftWorx platform and our partnership with Fanshawe College on a yearlong research project. The project, like Shiftworx itself, focuses on the gamification of productivity and tracking continuous improvement on manufacturing floors. Read some of the important quotes as well as the full article below:

When asked about our motivation for creating ShiftWorx, president Paul Hogendoorn, had this to say:

“Rather than measuring downtime, inefficiencies and waste, FreePoint focuses on the positive… based on real-time information, the respective workers can instantly assess, tweak, and improve their manufacturing process.”

However, the gaming aspect was the focus of this article and the motivation behind our research partnership with Fanshawe. The study, financed through a one-year grant from the Ontario Centres of Excellence (OCE) hopes to bring the constant innovation going on at FreePoint into an academic and public spotlight. But the real goal of this project is to affect and empower a new generation of workers whose motivation has a direct effect on our industries and our economy. In another poignant quote, Paul Hogendoorn reflects on his past and the future of skilled trades:

“In my day, the only feedback we received at work was a pay cheque… young workers require continuous feedback…whether they are competing as an individual or collaborating as a team.”