Learning and practising supply chain management strategies from a business simulation game: a comprehensive supply chain simulation

Zhou, Li, Xie, Ying, Wild, Nigel and Hunt, Charles (2008) Learning and practising supply chain management strategies from a business simulation game: a comprehensive supply chain simulation. In: Proceedings of the 2008 Winter Simulation Conference. IEEE Conference Publications . Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Piscataway, NJ, USA, pp. 2534-2542. ISBN 9781424427079

Abstract

An Internet based supply chain simulation game (ISCS) is introduced and demonstrated in this paper. Different from other games and extended from the Beer Game, a comprehensive set of supply chain (SC) management strategies can be tested in the game, and these strategies can be evaluated and appraised based on the built-in Management Information System (MIS). The key functionalities of ISCS are designed to increase players SC awareness, facilitate understanding on various SC strategies and challenges, foster collaboration between partners, and improve problem solving skills. It is concluded that an ISCS can be used as an efficient and effective teaching tool as well as a research tool in operations research and management science. Problems and obstacles have been observed while engaging in the SC business scenario game. The actions proposed and implemented to solve these problems have resulted in improved SC performance.

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