The Beer Game (Supply chain)

(Figure courtesy of DSC consulting)

Our team was playing the Retailer role. As communication between us, the wholesalers, distributors and the factory was not allowed we had to rely on the pattern of flow of orders from the customer side and delivery of beers from the wholesaler, which were unpredictable especially given the unfamiliarity of the market we were put in, and were forced to make decisions based on mere guesses rather than justifiable assumptions, to say the least. what was interesting about this game is the similarity in the resulting consequence between over/under stocking of beers in an organization warehouse and over flow of beer in the human system, especially while driving under the influence of alcohol, both situations maybe characterized by lacking clear sense of direction, being at the mercy of the external environment, and eventually leading to a deadly accident. Hence, at the end of this experience, the question left on our minds was how deadly such a phenomenon may turn out to be for WOU, if it was to be placed in such an unfortunate position.

We believe that the use of IT in the supply chain would help avoid such adverse effects by better facilitating communication, tracking and storing of relevant information and even by predicting consequences for different scenarios.