Unit Cost Game
Developed for Novo Nordisk
The challenge
How do you train managing teams to understand and skilfully use a complex core business term? A core term where the tiniest misunderstanding can lead to unnecessarily costing the business millions.
That was the challenge Novo Nordisk had, when they contacted Copenhagen Game Lab at the end of 2020. The managing teams at their factories all over the world needed training in the complex term ‘unit cost’, where even the smallest decimals have significant consequences.
The solution
The solution became ‘The Unit Cost Game’. A digital game where the participants control an insulin factory for eight years. Here they need to implement different initiatives to optimise the factory’s unit cost, while they’re still delivering for demand and handle the unforeseen situations that arise at a factory.
Every initiative has a cost and impact the different aspects of production and must therefore be weighed against each other. The participants must avoid production bottlenecks, balance short- and long-term considerations, ensure a suitable stock and continuously find time for LEAN improvements.
The result
The game was beta tested at Novo Nordisk’s Danish factories with great success. Since then, it’s been translated into multiple languages – including English, French, Portuguese and Chinese – in order to roll it out at Novo Nordisk’s factories across the World.
