Developing effective management flight simulators

Abstract

A novel, easy-to-use interactive simulator is developed to help students and others learn about the impact of time delays in complex systems. Users attempt to follow a target on a computer screen, with different patterns for the target and different time delays between control actions and their impact on the screen position. The delay simulator is an effective management flight simulator for assisting in teaching the concept of delays in supply chains and other complex systems. The simulator's usability factored into its effectiveness. Extensive user feedback and testing were carried out to yield a simple, intuitive interface. Human subjects were given specific tasks to perform on the simulator. The results from these experiments were used to determine the learning effect of the simulator. As expected, performance and consistency both improved as the number of trials for each user grew.