The Root Beer Game Simulation

Forio Group. (2011). Root beer game demo. HBR. Retrieved from http://forio.com/simulation/harvard-root-beer-game-demo/login.htm

Running the simulation involves the following steps:
•Review the Simulation Summary, Your Role, and How to Play sections under the Prepare tab.
•Go to the Analyze tab to run the simulation.
•Submit your weekly order in the Enter Order field; at least 20 rounds are necessary to get a good feel for the problems involved.
•When finished, review your performance under the Dashboard Overview, Inventory and Shipments, Orders and Backlog, and Cost Detail tabs.

It sounds easy, right? Try it and see how good you are at getting root beer to your customers while keeping your inventory and costs low.

See if you can control the bullwhip oscillations of stock-outs followed by over-supply.

To run the simulation several times, you will need log out and start again. The log out command is on the bottom left side of the page.

Spend a maximum of 30 minutes working with the game. Then think about it in conjunction with this module’s readings for perhaps another 15

-20 minutes.

address the following questions:
1.What did you do in the simulation? What activities did you engage in? What did you learn about what’s going on?
2.What have you learned about supply chain management from your participation in this simulation?

you will be personally experiencing the importance of supply chain management (SCM) through a simulation exercise. Your job is to fully

understand the components of SCM and how they are broken down into parts. SCM includes the customer as the input and output in the chain

through planning, purchasing, inventory, production, and transportation. SCM ensures that products and services are delivered efficiently

using IT and related applications such as enterprise resource planning (ERP), Oracle, and SAP. More specific applications include customer

relation analysis (CRA), material resource planning (MRP), and inbound and outbound logistic tracking systems, among others. These

applications integrate to the full value chain and interface with customers and suppliers via the Internet and mobile technology.

The challenge of SCM is coordination. Suppliers, manufacturers, sales people, and customers have their own, often incomplete, understanding

of what real demand is. Each group has control over only a part of the supply chain, but each group can influence the entire chain by

ordering too much or too little. Furthermore, each group is influenced by decisions that others are making. This lack of coordination

coupled with the ability to influence while being influenced by others leads to what Stanford’s Hau Lee refers to as the Bullwhip Effect.

Decisions made by groups along the supply chain may actually worsen shortages or overstocks. The bullwhip effect is illustrated by a story

Lee tells about how Volvo found itself with extra inventories of green cars. To get them off the dealers’ lots, Volvo’s sales department

offered special deals, so demand for green cars increased. Production, unaware of the promotion, saw the increase in sales and ramped up

production of green cars.

Coordination is not just about communication. Even in supply chains where communication is perfect, manufacturing and procurement delays

can wreak havoc. While customers are ordering, backlogs can build, and it is easy to confuse backlogged orders with increases in demand.