Contact

Training & Employee Development

Ready or Not™

Ready or Not Business Simulation

Ready or Not™ is an interactive business simulation designed specifically for manufacturers. It enables cross- functional teams to make real business trade-offs—balancing capacity against demand, cash versus growth, and risk against resilience—while immediately seeing the business impact of their decisions. This powerful tool creates shared understanding, strengthens communication, and provides a clearer path to profitable, resilient operations for manufacturing organizations facing complex operational challenges.

Simulation Overview and Benefits

WHO IT’S FOR

  • Manufacturers seeking to align leaders and supervisors around a common operating model
  • Plant managers and department heads building cross-functional collaboration
  • New and emerging leaders transitioning from the floor to frontline management
  • Companies preparing for major change (new line, new customer, ERP , growth)

 

PAIN POINTS ADDRESSED

  • Siloed decisions undermining throughput and eroding customer service
  • Teams fighting fires instead of executing disciplined strategy
  • Communication breakdowns between production, sales, supply chain, quality, and finance
  • Priority drift when market conditions or internal constraints shift
  • Cyber/information risks and poor data access disrupting operations
  • First-time supervisors lacking systems thinking, weakening leadership readiness

Hundreds of Manufacturing Professionals Have Played

93%

Rated Ready or Not as Excellent

97%

Gained new knowledge,
skills and insights

99%

Would recommend Ready
or Not to a colleague

Accelerate Alignment

One session replaces weeks of slide decks and meetings in an engaging format that drives consensus.

Experimentation

Test bold ideas without risking customer relationships or cash resources.

Immediate relevance

Scenarios mirror real manufacturing tradeoffs your team faces daily.

Scalable deployment

Run for a single plant team or multiple sites across your organization.

Low Implemantation Effort

Your leaders focus on insights and actions while we handle the simulation.

Proven Impact

Consistently rated our most engaging event with strong participant advocacy. Ready or Not™ has been adopted and delivered by multiple state programs and industry partners, with organizations frequently requesting repeat attendance and company-specific runs after participating in public sessions.

Learn. Change. Adapt.

Your company’s greatest competitive advantage is adapting to change faster than your competition. Ready or Not strengthens your team’s adaptability in three ways:

Raises Business IQ

Employees gain experience and perspective by collaborating across business functions to deliver business results. Players love the educational game play and appreciate your investment in their growth through a premium employee development experience.

Builds a Strategic Mindset

Employees who understand the internal and external factors critical to your company’s success are more willing to embrace new strategies and implement changes critical increasing profitability. building.

Strengthens Teamwork & Connections

Ready or Not’s “collaborate to compete” design promotes knowledge sharing, open communication and relationship building.

WHAT PARTICIPANTS DO

During the Ready or Not™ simulation, participants form cross-functional teams and make strategic decisions under realistic constraints. They choose strategic postures and operating tactics while navigating market shifts, supply disruptions, and other real-world scenarios. Throughout the experience, teams can immediately see how their choices affect key performance indicators and connect in-game scenarios directly to their company’s specific challenges.

EXPECTED OUTCOMES

The simulation delivers tangible results, including a
shared mental model of how the entire business fits
together, stronger communication and leadership
behaviors across functions, clearer and more coherent strategy and execution priorities, and faster buy-in for improvement projects such as Lean/CI, scheduling, S&OP, and workforce initiatives.

Player Feedback

"I love the game provided real world challenges & consequences; many I’m working through at my business now.”
“I've led strategy at multiple orgs. This was a fun way to explain the impact. I liked the multiple iterations; fun, realistic & surprising events.”
“I’m new to the industry; it helped me think about all of the moving parts in operating a successful business.”

PLAYERS EXPERIMENT WITH 10 LEVERS CRITICAL TO UNLEASHING PROFITABLE GROWTH

1

Strategic Planning

2

Lean Manufacturing

3

Expanding Production

4

Supply Chain Optimization

5

Employee Development

6

Growing Distribution

7

Enterprise Resource Planning

8

IT & Cybersecurity

9

Brand Development

10

Sales & Marketing

PLAYERS COLLABORATE TO OVERCOME 10 HIGH-PROBABILITY REAL-WORLD CHALLENGES

1

Production Line Disruptions

2

Quality Control Crisis

3

Marketplace Competition

4

Margin Erosion

5

Recession

6

Supply Chain Disruptions

7

Inflationary Pressures

8

Cyber Attacks

9

Distribution Challenges

10

Public Relations Crisis