Abstract
Especially in the age of digitalization lean management continues to be of great importance for the manufacturing industry. The consistent realization and implementation as well as the long-term success of lean management require the involvement of all process participants from the management level to the shopfloor. For a solid basic knowledge of lean management methods and concepts, it is important to train students as future specialists extensively as well as to conduct regular trainings for employees in companies. Classical training formats often prove to be ineffective, as the transfer of knowledge is not sustainable. The use of gamification has recently established itself as an effective tool to increase motivation and engagement in various contexts. Gamification refers to the incorporation of game elements and principles into situations and environments not normally associated with games. The aim of this paper is to give an overview of the background on gamification and to present an application example in teaching context. For this purpose, the theoretical background of gamification will be discussed extensively and the concept of Escape Rooms for university teaching will be analyzed. This is followed by the presentation of an application example, called the FHDO Lean Escape Room, developed for the use of gamification for knowledge transfer in the field of lean management at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Dortmund.