Learning Maintenance, Repair and Operations (MRO) concepts in offshore wind industry through game-based learning

Digital Education Games (DEGs) have become increasingly popular as an educational tool in schools and for training professionals. However a review of literature has shown the limited use of such games in teaching concepts related to Maintenance, Repair and Operations (MRO) in the engineering field. The contribution of this paper and the DEG is specific to MRO in offshore wind energy. In our DEG the player mimics the behavior of a single decision maker, namely, the manager of the MRO facility who is responsible for the day-to-day allocation of resources for the upkeep of two offshore wind farms. The game enables the player to learn from a complex planning task wherein idle MRO resources must be minimized. The aim of the game is to prevent loss of revenue brought about through inadequate maintenance of the windfarms. The game is developed in Microsoft Excel using the VBA programming environment.