Procedure for Experiential Learning to Conduct Material Flow Simulation Projects, Enabled by Learning Factories

Material flow simulation is a powerful tool to identify improvements in factory operation. For conducting simulation projects, experts are required who know how to prepare, execute and evaluate simulation studies. To date, training mostly focusses on textual case studies, whereby learners perform simulation studies based on a problem and data given in a description. However, this hardly reflects the ways engineers learn. They are mostly used to physically experiment based on their experience. In this paper, a procedure for experiential learning to conduct material flow simulation projects is elaborated, enabled by learning factories. A learning situation at Vietnamese-German University is described. Results indicate, that the students gain particular awareness about the challenges associated with the abstraction of the reality and the interpretation of the simulation outcomes.