Massachusetts Institute of Technology designed a beer game that is now widely used. Under the goal of ensuring that the principles of supply chain management are easy to understand and applicable to daily business problems, the game was originally used as a teaching tool and was widely used in governments, and education departments at all levels all over the world.
So maybe the success of the beer game lies in its versatility, high value and easy-to-use!
It proved that basic but important principles, and concepts in supply chain management can be universally applied to many areas of business.
The game can test the learner’s human nature of response and what strategies will be adopted to solve problems and disputes under certain events or business problems.
In the game that each company is a part of the supply chain. Each supply chain can have up to 4 roles, which can be played by a person or a group of learners.
Each role represents a company, that is, each role is in the upper, middle and lower reaches of the supply chain. The four roles are the most upstream factory, distributor, wholesaler and retailer.
Each game can simulate one or more supply chains at the same time, and different supply chains to be competed with each other.