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Beer Simulation Game Analysis

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The Beer Simulation Game was a surreal lesson in Supply Chain Management for me. The simulation game included four stages of SCM that required four participants to act in four different roles: the Manufacturer, Distributor, Wholesaler and Retailer. I was the manufacturer for my team; therefore I was responsible for producing the units of beer, whereas the other three were responsible for delivering to the respective customers. The first game, which was played in Classic Mode, resulted in the cost of a dreadful $36,874.00. I initially thought that I was doing something wrong in manufacturing the orders, but then realized that there were several factors contributing to the increasing inventory costs. The second game played in transparency mode …show more content…

During the first game, we did not know who our teammates were, although the retailer was easily identified for me as a result of outbursts during the game. During the classic mode, it was frustrating not being able to communicate to the other players; not being able to see what was going on with the other participants’ inventory, and not having any data or information to help make logical decisions. The second game was played in transparent mode, it was much smoother being able to have the visibility of what the other players were doing, however we still collectively performed the worst in the class. I believed that much to my team’s demise, ineffective communication plagued our team. Although the second game was more transparent and we were more aware who our teammates were, the retailer and the distributor would constantly tell me to produce high units of beer that I expressed would not be a good strategy. During the transparent mode game, the “alpha dog” of the group was adamant about me producing additional units, even when I expressed to her that the distributor was only submitting orders of 0. Eventually, I just decided to no longer produce any units for the remaining 17 weeks. This was definitely not a collective effort and our failure to collaborate contributed to our poor

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