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Supply chain management simulation for hands-on teaching
The Beer Game, created by Jay Forrester at MIT, is a hands-on supply chain management simulation that can be used for business school classes at the undergraduate, graduate or executive level. Players assume roles in a beer supply chain (ex., retailer, wholesaler, distributor or factory). ‘Downstream’ players order inventory from ‘upstream’ players, with the goal of minimizing inventory and backorder costs.
The game illustrates how over-reactions to real or perceived demand changes, known as the “bullwhip effect”, can happen along an improperly managed supply chain.
The Newsvendor Game admin console is simple to use and allows the instructor to control all aspects of the game flow. Ranking reports show participants how their performance compares to others. Graphic displays of average ordering and average demand facilitate class discussion about operations management techniques that can improve the performance of real world inventory management.
Our Newsvendor Game runs out-of-the-box with tested preset parameters, while allowing the instructor to customize simulation settings such as retail and wholesale prices, good will cost, salvage values, demand distribution and the number of rounds played. The Newsvendor Game is a single player game, making it ideal for on-line courses or for being assigned for homework.
Changable experiment parameters for flexible teaching
Round based group interaction with order dependencies
Customized landing page matching the corporate identity of your institution
Live monitoring and interference possibilities for all business simulations
Participants play different positions of a supply chain with varying information
Use any mobile device to run the business simulations in a browser
Precise inventory management and punishment for backorder
Precise insights on participant decisions and debriefing tools
"Over the last 10 years I have taught the "Beer Game" supply chain simulation to numerous groups of graduate students and executives. For some of those games I used the "manual" game, when the students have to physically "move" the product and do the bookkeeping, for others I tried several software products available in the market. While the manual game provides ultimate engagement, it is also more stressful for students, and harder to execute by the faculty - a software therefore is a desired solution. My experience with some of the products available, however, has been sometimes negative, and I was therefore looking for a "clean" and simple implementation that just works.
I was therefore very grateful when SoPHIELabs team agreed to work with me and several other academics to create a new Beer Game product on their platform. Since then I used it twice: once with a group of executives, and another times in a graduate course on supply chain analytics. Both times the game ran smoothly and allowed me to focus on the learnings from the game, rather than on the logistics of the game. For the particular features that I like most, I would emphasize that (i) the Beer Game by SoPHIELabs runs on any device (PC, Mac, tablet, smartphone) and (ii) it has a very clean, simple and visually appealing - well designed - user interface and faculty debrief tools. Students very appreciate both these features, and so do I. I look forward to using this game in my future courses and highly recommend it to other faculty who uses Beer Game in their courses."
Anton Ovchinnikov, Distinguished Faculty Professor of Management Science and Operations Management at Queen's School of Business
“Over the last 10 years I have taught the "Beer Game" supply chain simulation to numerous groups of graduate students and executives. For some of those games I used the "manual" game, when the students have to physically "move" the product and do the bookkeeping, for others I tried several software products available in the market. While the manual game provides ultimate engagement, it is also more stressful for students, and harder to execute by the faculty - a software therefore is a desired solution. My experience with some of the products available, however, has been sometimes negative, and I was therefore looking for a "clean" and simple implementation that just works.
I was therefore very grateful when SoPHIELabs team agreed to work with me and several other academics to create a new Beer Game product on their platform. Since then I used it twice: once with a group of executives, and another times in a graduate course on supply chain analytics. Both times the game ran smoothly and allowed me to focus on the learnings from the game, rather than on the logistics of the game. For the particular features that I like most, I would emphasize that (i) the Beer Game by SoPHIELabs runs on any device (PC, Mac, tablet, smartphone) and (ii) it has a very clean, simple and visually appealing - well designed - user interface and faculty debrief tools. Students very appreciate both these features, and so do I. I look forward to using this game in my future courses and highly recommend it to other faculty who uses Beer Game in their courses.”
Learn more about the Operations Games Beer Game Simulation. To discuss your projects, technical queries, class schedule or any other questions related to our products and services please send us an email! Give us an idea of your requirements and we will be happy to address your needs.
