Alpha — Early Demo Operations · Theory of Constraints · Business / Engineering

FactorySim

Run a factory, watch it behave, and discover why the obvious choice often costs you.

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The FactorySim exercise-select screen, listing the built-in operations exercises.

FactorySim puts students in charge of a small factory and asks them to make it profitable. They staff machines with operators, buy raw materials, and run the line over a simulated work-week — then a scoreboard shows the net profit, units sold, and exactly where time was lost. The lesson isn't in the rules; it's in watching the factory behave. The move that looks obvious usually earns less than the one that reads the numbers. Longer term, FactorySim grows into a classroom platform where students compete on shared scenarios and instructors run the conditions — but the single-player demo is playable today.

Being Tested The Four Exercises

Each scenario isolates a single operations concept — playable now in the demo.

A single production line — Cutter, Assembler, Painter — feeding a sell dock.

The Bottleneck

Find the constraint. The slowest machine sets the pace for the whole line.

Two color-coded product lines with operators and buy panels.

Two Products, One Constraint

Judge products by throughput per minute of scarce machine time — not sticker price.

A stamping line where batch size can be toggled.

The Batch Trap

See how big batches starve downstream machines and lock cash in work-in-progress.

A drum-buffer-rope line built around a slow press.

The Rope

Release raw material only as fast as the drum can consume it — no faster.

Being Tested In the Demo

Real-Time Simulation

Machines consume inputs, process parts, and pass output down the line in real time — with a speed control to run the week fast or slow.

Materials Economy & Scoreboard

Buy stock as you go, sell finished goods for cash, and review net profit, return on cash, and per-machine idle time when the week ends.

Custom Scenarios

Drop your own exercise files into a folder and they appear on the menu automatically — build a factory that fits your lesson.

Runs Anywhere

Playable on PC and in the browser, with a touch-friendly layout that reflows for tablets and phones.

Planned Roadmap

  • Classroom competition & live leaderboards Students race on shared scenarios with a live leaderboard — competition mechanics that lecture-based business content rarely delivers.
  • Instructor controls & class setup Configure scenarios, adjust difficulty, and manage conditions across different class sections.
  • Advanced supply chain modeling Multi-tier supplier relationships, demand variability, and logistics constraints layered into the simulation.
  • LMS integrations — Canvas, Moodle Grade passback and roster sync so FactorySim fits into existing course structures without friction.
  • Custom factory sharing Publish and share custom factory configurations with the PlayEDU educator community.
  • Localization Translated exercises for international operations and Theory of Constraints curricula.

Teaching business or operations? Let's talk.

FactorySim is in active development and we're looking for instructors willing to run early tests with their courses. Your feedback shapes the roadmap.

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Inspired by the Theory of Constraints, a management methodology developed by Eliyahu M. Goldratt. FactorySim is an independent product and is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Goldratt organizations.