Homo Ludens

In the coming months, E3 Magazine will take up the aspect of playful learning and launch an educational initiative ranging from the simulation of dynamic systems to the digital twin. Of course, this ambitious project can only succeed with the help of the SAP community, which is why this internal announcement is also a call for ideas and cooperation. If you have experience with serious games, if you have experimented with simulations and digital twins during your computer science studies, or if you appreciate the hidden seriousness of computer games, please get in touch with me.

SAP sponsors a team of professional computer gamers. This is one of SAP's many secrets, and SAP customers are wondering what the point of this endeavor is. SAP's involvement is not just a way of promoting itself as an attractive employer in a young IT scene. There is also a technical aspect: modern real-time computer games involve data processing at the highest level. The amount of data and the speed at which it can be reproduced provide an excellent training ground for the Hana in-memory computing database.

Forty years ago, "Simulation of Dynamic Systems" was a subject found on the computer science syllabus at most universities—an early forerunner of what is now known as Digital Twin. A Digital Twin of a company, a manufacturing plant, or a concert hall can offer several benefits. First and foremost is low-cost experimentation. In the automotive industry, many crash tests and aerodynamic optimizations are carried out as simulations of dynamic systems on a computer. This not only saves costs, but also time.

Siemens created a digital twin of the main auditorium at the Salzburg Festival in order to optimize microphone positioning. The software helps improve the acoustics without having to lay miles of cable. The creation of Digital Twins is not trivial and is still largely occurs manually with the help of software libraries. The commercial use of Digital Twins in the ERP sector remains in its infancy. However, enrichment through AI processes could accelerate development in the coming years. Which leads me to asking the following: ChatGPT, please build me a Digital Twin of my company!

In the future, insights from game theory and simulation technology will be used to explore and control complex structures, as well as to experience and learn. The subject of serious games is not new; however, it is still a niche topic in business administration and in the ERP environment. A glass bead game for S/4 Hana could increase the general acceptance of this ERP option. One suggestion would be to use the new SAP Business Suite as a Digital Twin for serious game projects.