A modern car factory is a near perfect example of efficiency, process-management and flow. A massive army of precision-controlled robots dance to a milimeter-perfect ballet of engineering excellence with perfect timing. Components snake along conveyor belts to a 'just-in-time' ordering system that leaves no pauses, no delay, no confusion or congestion. Nothing exists but the perfect flowing efficiency of high tech car construction...
theory.
In practice, of course, life is not so simple. When you get to grips with your first factory design, it certainly will not feel in a state of pure flow...or profit for that matter. Making a handful of built-to-order cars and breaking even is one thing...but competing with the big multinationals and churning out thousands of cars for the mass market is a whole new ballgame.
To win market share from the big companies you are going to need planning, an appreciation of future technology, a careful eye on your bottom line, and an ability to design a factory layout that makes use of every square meter, and cuts production costs per car to the absolute minimum. Have you got what it takes to win?
Production line is the new car factory management/simulation/tycoon game from Positech Games, the developers of Democracy & Gratuitous Space Battles, and publishers of Big Pharma. This game is designed to appeal to the efficiency geek in all of us, the person who cannot help but organize things for maximum performance. The closet entrepreneur, the stats-geek, Is that you? if so...welcome to your dream game (we hope!)
The key to understanding production line is the division of labor and the merits of purpose-built machinery. At the start, your factory will be small and the individual slots on your production line will carry out large complex tasks (like fitting the car body). As you research better methods, and earn the funds to expand, you will continue to subdivide those slots into smaller (and faster) production areas which keep the flow of new vehicles flowing smoothly. At the same time, product design researchers will be working out how to enhance your cars with new technologies such as automatic headlights, power steering, bluetooth phone support and voice recognition.
its a race to be productive AND a race to be profitable. Are you ready to compete?
