Design of a procedural model for extracting and specifying requirements of gamification tools and features in industrial maintenance

Abstract

Processes in industrial maintenance are changing substantially as a result of increasing complexity and automation in modern factories. This poses a challenge to a company’s maintenance staff, whose job profile has to be adjusted to this development. As a result, employees must be prepared and trained for consequential new requirements. Gamification offers a novel and promising approach for filling competence gaps in the course of professional training. Literature on its application in industrial maintenance, however, is rare.The aim of this thesis is to identify the necessary steps to specify requirements of a gamified application for professional training in industrial maintenance. One of the most consequential decisions in the development of a Gamification application for training has to be made regarding its purpose (i.e. skilling, upskilling or reskilling) and the type of training (on-the-job training or off-the-job-training). This specification has an influence on the design of the learning content in particular. Therefore, the following main research question has been defined: What is an appropriate step-by-step approach to extract and specify requirements of a gamified learning tool and its features with regard to professional training in industrial maintenance? To answer this research question, a comprehensive literature research has been conducted on human learning, Gamification and software design, and requirements engineering. On this basis, a morphology for determining the specifications of a gamified training application and a procedural model for its development and implementation were developed. The morphology clusters all significant attributes of Gamification applications for training purposes into categories and ascribes all conceivable characteristics to them. Hence, the proposed morphology is not only a tool for describing a system, but also one that is useful in the design process. Especially in combination with the developed procedural model, this morphology helps to gather all necessary requirements to the application. The intertwined application of the morphology and the procedural model therefore creates the basis for designing and developing a Gamification application for trainings purposes in industrial maintenance.The developed morphology and procedural model were evaluated by a questionnaire survey and the generated expert’s feedback was analyzed in detail. Based on the results, improvements have been made to the morphology. Furthermore, the concept of the procedural model could be proven. Hence, this work contributes to the field of gamified training in industrial maintenance by providing two main results: a morphology of Gamification attributes and a procedural model for the development and implementation of a gamified application. The methodology of this work ensured that both morphology and procedural model are in a state that future research can build upon. Morphology and procedural model are ready for a pilot application and testing in professional training in industrial maintenance. The insights gathered through this initial application could be the source for further improvements.