Microworld development: Transforming Tacit Knowledge Into Action

The article presents the outcomes of a group model-building project at a chemical company that produces calcium carbide. The project led not only to the creation of a system dynamics model describing the production process but also to a microworld, a computer-based interactive learning environment meant to reproduce most of the features of the operating and controlling software actually used in the company. The process of organizational learning, the gaining of a better common understanding of the production process, and the development of the different mental models of the plant operators were some of the project’s main goals. Moreover, the method followed during the project can be considered as general and can be used mainly in a variety of production processes in most manufacturing industrial firms both for the modeling of production processes and for teaching and training the operators who manage such systems.