Industrial management

FactoryDirector

Beyond the Bottleneck

Pallets pile up, trucks wait, teams wear out. You run a bicycle factory: find what really limits it, and fix it without breaking everything.

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  • Management game
  • 6 factories
  • Windows and Mac
  • Français · English · Deutsch
Presentation video · 1 min 52 · 1080p · on-screen text in English, gameplay from the French versionTry the game ↓
The game loop

A week as director

Every week follows the same thread. You look, you understand, you choose, then the factory runs before your eyes and answers back.

  1. After a walk on the shop floor: the “What you learned” card, marked “observed fact”

    Observe

    Walk the shop floor (gemba), talk to people, time the work. What you see with your own eyes becomes a fact; a rumour stays a rumour, and sometimes it is a false lead.

  2. The “Name the bottleneck” window: pick the station, then the cause

    Diagnose

    You name the station that limits the whole factory, and the cause: staffing, absences, breakdowns, machine capacity, quality, clutter. The verdict comes at the end of the week.

  3. The “Train” window: each training costs a time slot, €900 and a week of learning

    Decide

    Train, hire, move someone, overtime, maintenance, release work at the bottleneck's pace. Every lever costs time slots, money or time, and some only take effect the following week.

  4. The weekly review: inspection really was the bottleneck, and the bottleneck has moved

    Watch the factory react

    Bikes move station by station, hour by hour. The review tells you whether you were right, what your choices changed in numbers, and where the bottleneck went.

The flow

Where is the bottleneck?

The flow of the national plant on a Tuesday at 3:50 p.m., taken from a real game: what each station has done since Monday, and what is waiting between them.

Receiving dock11
Receiving164 done
Material store182to paint: 40
Paint shop132 done
To the oven17
Curing oven135 done
To assemble46
Assembly129 done
To inspect11
Inspection148 done
Finished goods48
Shipping150 delivered

Swipe the flow to see every station →

The biggest stock is not necessarily in front of the culprit.

The biggest pile sits in the material store. Case closed? Look instead at what each station has really done since Monday. In the game, you go and see before you conclude.

30
bikes late
74%
of orders on time, against a 90% target
1,095
bikes still to deliver
The big moments

Running a factory doesn't stop at the dashboard

Sometimes you have to leave the office. These moments are played in person, all with the mouse: you talk, you negotiate, you promise, and what happens there comes back later.

The town hall: the director at the lectern, facing the town council
Factory 1The town hallForty bikes for the town's staff, to be defended before the town council.
The bike show: the director on the main stage, in front of the audience
Factory 2The bike showA stand, buyers who haggle over every euro, a turn on the main stage.
The protest: the teams at the gate, with banners
Factory 3The protestThe Group wants to outsource painting. Monday, 6:30 a.m., everyone is at the gate.
The TV studio: the “Face to Face” show, live
Factory 3The TV studio“Face to Face”, live at 8 p.m., across the table from the staff representative.
The battery fire: flames in the battery cage, at night
Factory 4The battery fire10 p.m., the battery cage. Alarm, evacuation, fire curtains, firefighters.
At the supplier's: racks and crates of batteries
Factory 4At the supplier'sTheir cells caused the fire. You go looking for the real bottleneck at their plant, before noon.
Group headquarters: the board seated facing the director
Factory 6Group headquartersThe Group board decides the site's future. You will get to speak… when they let you.
The dinner: one-on-one at a restaurant with the competitor's boss
Factory 6The dinnerThe competitor's boss invites you, “between people in the trade”. Sort truth from bluff.
Consequences

Your decisions follow you

A good decision today can become tomorrow's problem.

The game keeps track of what you sign, promise and decide. An example from one game:

  1. At the show stand: negotiating price, volume and lead time
    Today · at the show

    You sign

    A buyer asks for 28 bikes a week, delivered within three weeks, and haggles over every euro. The game warns you: there is no spare capacity left.

  2. The order book: load over the next eight weeks at 127%
    The following weeks

    The orders come in

    Deals from the show are decided week after week. The order book fills up: 127% load over the next eight weeks.

  3. A new queue of bikes building up in front of a station
    Then

    The queues grow

    The factory receives more than it can make. A queue forms in front of the slowest station, and delays pile up.

  4. In the end

    The promise becomes an industrial problem

    Late orders, customers who warn you before they leave, overtime that wears the team out. Signing was a good idea; keeping the promise is another job.

The fire review: the list of what changes next
After the fire, the review lists what changes next.

Other threads that come back

  • At the protest, a promise is noted. Broken, it comes back live in the TV studio.
  • The fire leaves its mark: batteries lost, receiving slowed down, cash dented, and a lead that takes you to the supplier.
  • At headquarters, your file is made of what you did before: the protest agreement, the fire report, the TV appearance, the show contracts.
  • A standard nobody checks any more ends up slipping, and the gain is lost.
Progression

Six factories, six challenges

Each promotion sends you to a bigger factory, with a different kind of problem: what worked before is no longer enough. You bring a few trusted people with you.

  1. 1The workshop
  2. 2Regional
  3. 3National
  4. 4Lead centre
  5. 5Refurbishment
  6. 6The Terraces
The workshop: repair benches and bikes on stands
Factory 1 · The workshop

Find what really holds things up

A small workshop that delivers late. A rumour is waiting for you on arrival: follow it, or go and check?

The regional factory: the row of welding stations
Factory 2 · Regional

Make it work with the people you have

An assembly line, day-to-day absences, certified welders. Stand-ins and mentoring, then the bike show to fill the order book.

The national plant: the paint inspection tunnel
Factory 3 · National

Change colour without stopping the line

A seasoned team that doesn't know you, a temperamental paint booth, hours lost at every colour change. And a social climate to keep an eye on.

The lead centre: the e-bike carousel
Factory 4 · Lead centre

Don't trust the dashboard

The Group's showcase. Batteries arrive with a three-week lead time, the dashboard says “compliant” while the shop floor says otherwise, and the customer comes to audit.

The refurbishment workshop
Factory 5 · Refurbishment

Bring order to used bikes

Used bikes arriving in every condition, without labels. It looks like a lack of hands; you need to sort them, prepare kits, set a reference.

The Terraces: racks of finished bikes and a forklift
Factory 6 · The Terraces

Handle a demand that won't keep still

Made-to-measure cargo bikes, rush orders raining down, every department blaming the next. A reactive or a levelled schedule, a stock that ties up cash. Then headquarters.

Private test version

Try the game

The game opens with a personal key, sent along with the link to this page. No key yet? Ask for one.

Download for WindowsWindows 10 or 11 · zip Install on MacmacOS 12 or later · one line to paste

Always the latest test version.

First install? See the instructionsWindows, Mac, key, updates

  1. Windows Install and launch

    1. Click “Download for Windows”, above.
    2. In your Downloads, right-click FactoryDirector-Windows.zip, then “Extract All…” and “Extract”. Don't launch the game from inside the zip: it wouldn't find its files.
    3. In the FactoryDirector folder that opens, double-click FactoryDirector, the one with the game icon (type “Application”). Leave the other files next to it: the game needs them.

    If “Windows protected your PC” appears: “More info”, then “Run anyway”. To find it easily: right-click FactoryDirector, “Send to”, “Desktop (create shortcut)” (on Windows 11, go through “Show more options” first).

    Mac Install and launch: nothing to download first, this line does everything.

    1. Open Terminal: press ⌘ + Space, type “Terminal”, then Return.
    2. Click “Copy”, paste the line into Terminal (⌘ + V) and press Return. It downloads the game, installs it in Applications and opens it.
    curl -fsSL https://zarkyxxx.github.io/factory-director/installer-mac.sh | sh

    Then launch FactoryDirector from Applications or Launchpad. Why Terminal: the game isn't signed by Apple, and macOS blocks an unsigned game downloaded through the browser; installed with this line, it opens straight away.

    Without Terminal (instead of the line, not as well)

    Download the Mac zip. If it didn't open by itself, double-click it in Downloads. Drag FactoryDirector into Applications and open it. Close the blocking message, then open System Settings, Privacy & Security; at the very bottom, click “Open Anyway” and confirm. Only needed once: updates, made from inside the game, are no longer blocked.

  2. On first launch, paste the key you received with the game link, for example
    FD-7KQ2-MX9P-4TRW
    then click “Activate”. You need to be online this one time. The game opens, and the key stays saved: after that, it works offline.

  3. After that, the game updates itself: when a new version comes out, the menu offers “Update”. No need to download or reinstall anything; your key and your saved games are kept.

A key is personal: it can be activated on two computers at most (a desktop and a laptop, for example). Beyond that it is refused; if you change computers, ask the person who gave it to you to release it.

No key yet?

Keys are handed out one by one. Tell us in a few words why you would like to try the game: the team will answer you by email.

Your address is only used to reply to you.