Siemens interactive manufacturing game nears 10,000 visitors in less than a week

SOURCE: Siemens Industrial

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The launch of Plantville, Siemens Industry Inc.’s interactive plant floor simulation game, has attracted the attention of manufacturers, cutting-edge marketing Website and the national press. But the core audience for Plantville can best be summed up by one user: “This is sooooo cool! Can’t wait to get started.”

Plantville, which launched exclusive last week at controleng.com and plantengineering.com, already has attracted nearly 10,000 unique visitors from 98 countries. The game has more than 270 Facebook friends, and the video showcasing the game has received more than 2,900 hits on You Tube.

With a strong need to explain a manufacturing career to young people as a critical need in manufacturing, a target audience for Plantville was students. They have proven to be an early adopter of the game. Colleges and Universities around the country, from South Florida to Cal State Northridge and from Texas-San Antonio to the University of Alaska have logged in to play Plantville.

Players are faced with the challenge of maintaining the operation of their plant while trying to improve the productivity, efficiency, sustainability and overall health of their facility. The game enables players to improve the health of their plants by learning about and applying industrial and infrastructure products and solutions from Siemens. Gamers will be measured on a number of Key Performance Indicators, including safety, on time delivery, quality, as well as energy management and employee satisfaction.

“Siemens is capitalizing on the tremendous growth of online engagement to demonstrate how our expertise can make industry and infrastructure more competitive by increasing sustainability, energy efficiency and productivity in a fun and educational environment,” said Daryl Dulaney, president and CEO, Siemens Industry, Inc. “We also hope Plantville will generate excitement in the areas of math, science and technology while inspiring a new generation of plant managers and engineers.”

Throughout the game, players will be able to interact with Pete the Plant Manager, whose plant has just won the “Plant of the Year” award. In a case of art imitating life, the Siemens plant in Norwood, OH was awarded the 2009 Top Plant Award by Plant Engineering.

Pete shares his best practices throughout the game to help players achieve outstanding results in plant performance. He will use Webisodes, the Plantville Café, Puzzlers, and Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter accounts to dialogue with gamers, provide hints to playing the game, and host a leader board for contestants.

In Plantville, players can select which of the three virtual plants they would like to manage first: – a bottling plant, a vitamin plant or a plant that builds trains. At the start of the game, each type of plant is faced with different challenges. The players must identify the challenges facing their plant and implement solutions to improve the plant’s KPIs. Gamers will compete with one another on a number of levels, including plant-to-plant and on specific KPIs. Pete’s leader board will keep track of which players are performing the best on each of the levels.

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- Edited by Gust Gianos, Plant Engineering, www.plantengineering.com