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A New Computerized Beer Game: A Tool for Teaching the Value of Integrated Supply Chain Management1
... One example is the management game "Top Management Decision Simulation" developed by the American Management Association (AMA) in the 1950's [2]. The probably bestknown business simulation game on supply chain management is the Beer Distribution Game developed at MIT in the 1960's, played in many versions, both as a board game and a computer-based game, and described in many publications, for example in [3][4][5][6][7][8]. ...
... The authors could not find an implementation of the Beer Distribution Game in the Internet that satisfies the requirements of the authors, especially in terms of flexibility, interaction of the participants and involvement of a trainer. Most of the games are "are 'automated' versions of the traditional game, primarily intended to make the game run faster" [8]. Klemke et al. [17] state that, "little work is reported that focus on multi-user learning situations". ...
... The two main goals of every player are to ensure a high delivery reliability and to minimize the inventory. The game resembles the Beer Distribution game, but does not have the weaknesses of the traditional Beer described by Kaminsky and Simchi-Levi [8], "the Beer Game does not necessarily provide students with insight on how to better manage the supply chain." The players experience the bullwhip effect and have to create and implement strategies to avoid the bullwhip effect and deliver all ordered products on time while minimizing the holding costs. ...
Management games are a common method for training employees in production and logistics, both in expert knowledge and in soft skills. Typically, all participants are located in one room while playing the game, which allows for a face-to-face interaction among the participants and between the participants and the trainer. This facilitates the typical learning loop of a management game: play, analyze and improve. For companies with supply chains covering faraway geographical locations and different time zones, the approach of having a management game seminar with all relevant participants (actors from different locations of the supply chain) in one room leads to high costs due to traveling and lost time for traveling. Multiplayer computer games played through the Internet could enable companies to conduct management games with actors of geographically distributed supply chains without spending money and time on travelling. The paper conceptually compares board games, multiplayer computer games played distributed over the internet and multiplayer VR games. Furthermore, the paper describes a prototype implementation of a computer game on supply chain management suitable for actors of a geographically distributed supply chain.
... As regards the supply-chain context, a number of games encourage supply chain and logistics understanding: the most famous being the turn-based MIT Beer Game (Kaminsky & Simchi-Levi, 1998;Sterman, 1989Sterman, , 1992. The goal of the game is to minimize inventory and backorder costs throughout a 25-50-week period. ...
... When the students first played the standard, decentralized variation of the game, the bullwhip effect was significant: the variation in the order placed by an upstream module was invariably greater than the variation in the customer demand. Once the information (customer demand and inventory levels) became centralized (known to all players), the bullwhip effect notably lessened as measured by the sharp drops in the system costs (Kaminsky & Simchi-Levi, 1998). Thus, by consecutively playing different variations of the game and comparing the variations in the orders and the system costs, students should be able to identify the major cause of the bullwhip effect. ...
Background. Educational games are widely used in business classes in general, and supply chain management (SCM) classes in particular. These games are designed to familiarize students with the real business world. Most SCM games are ready-made, with pre-set learning objectives focusing on a certain module in a supply chain.
Intervention. This article presents the new spreadsheet-based Flexible Supply Chain Management Game (FSCMG) and the findings of its pilot study. FSCMG’s features are transparent to instructors and students alike. It is easily modifiable to suit an instructor’s learning objectives.
Method. Six groups of undergraduate students took turns playing three modules, namely a wholesaler, manufacturer, and supplier. There were two groups per module to represent two supply chains. The students’ spreadsheets are analyzed and presented.
Results. Students’ spreadsheets revealed that they were able to employ SCM conceptual understanding in FSCMG, particularly pricing strategy, inventory management, forecasting, and the relationships within a supply chain.
Conclusion. FSCGM helped the students apply their in-class knowledge in a real-world situation and be well prepared for their future careers where an extensive understanding is required.
... With the technological developments in operations research, war games, computer technology and education theory, educators started integrating these games into business courses in the late 1950s (Ricciardi & Marting, 1957). Games such as the Beer Distribution Game (Kaminsky & Simchi-Levi, 1998) and the Markstrat Simulation Game (Larreche & Gatignon, 1977) were released in the following years and gained popularity among educators. ...
While resilience is acknowledged as a complex construct and one that is difficult to assess, universities are recognising its importance. They are beginning to invest in research and services aimed at building student resilience. However, there is limited research into the levels of, and contributors to, student resilience. This study explored the effects of an experiential learning tool, business simulation games (BSGs), on the development of IS students' academic resilience. The researcher interviewed instructors conducting ERPsim labs to find out their views regarding the impact of BSGs on three aspects of the Resilience at University (RAU) scale: academic buoyancy, personal competence and social competency. Findings from the instructors' interviews demonstrated that Business simulations help students build resilience by offering a safe environment where they can fail, learn, and try again. Simulations may educate students on managing stress and pressure, remaining focused on their objectives, and having a good attitude.
... However, many experts criticize the Beer Game simulation. Kaminsky and Simchi-Levi (1998) point out that the Beer Game has a few limitations such as students are generally so occupied with the mechanics of the game that it cannot reflect a realistic supply chain scenario. Kimbrough et al (2002) pointed out a lack of motivation for improvement during the course of the game since players are not encouraged to share information with each other. ...
This paper presents a new practical game which helps undergraduate students to understand how the concept of supply chain management (SCM) works. The game uses a simple supply chain structure incorporating three entities of the supply chain: supplier, plant, and customer. The game employs a set of toy building blocks such as LEGO® blocks and has the rules of the game, responsibility of each player, product descriptions and bill of materials. This competitive game is used supply chain cost as the measuring to determine the winner team of the game and the Bloom's taxonomy as guidelines to develop the assessment testing based on the learning objectives of courses. This proposed board game has been tested by many undergraduate students who are taking SCM and Logistics Management courses. The results show that the students who played the game reached the higher scores of assessment testing than students who didn't play the game. Furthermore, most students have also positive view about this game.
... Aunque la idea de utilizar la simulación como una herramienta pedagógica no es nueva, su aplicación típica se encuentra propiamente en la dinámica de sistemas. En Ingeniería Industrial se comienzan a explorar sus ventajas hacia 1960 en el Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) (Kaminsky y Simchi, 1998). Como resultado se desarrolla el concepto de juegos de empresa. ...
El presente trabajo corresponde al desarrollo de un proyecto de investigación el cual se encuentra en curso y cuya finalidad se enfoca en el establecimiento de los criterios, así como la línea base para coordinar las estrategias pedagógicas y didácticas de la Facultad de Ciencias Básicas e Ingeniería de Unicatólica, en especial aquellas que se asocian a los procesos de enseñanza y aprendizaje propios del quehacer de la Ingeniería Industrial. Abstract The present work corresponds to the development of a research project which is ongoing. Its purpose focuses on the establishment of criteria, as well as a baseline to coordinate pedagogical and didactic strategies for the Faculty of Basic Sciences and Engineering of Unicatólica, especially those associated with the teaching and learning processes of Industrial Engineering.
... Almaguer et al. demonstrate that the addition of VR and AR to gaming simulations has significantly improved learning amongst students [2], though they did not identify specific VR implementations of the beer game. Several papers report on computerized versions of the beer game [14]; a Web-based version [19]; and an AI version [15]. However, we have not identified any paper that discusses VR implementations. ...
... As already existing examples of SCM SG is possible to find the Beer Game [10] which is card based and probably, the most known and used. In 2015 a new modern version of the Beer Game has been integrated in a SCM course, leading the card based game towards a virtual application [11]. ...
In the last decades, Serious Games (SGs) have been implemented more and more in the engineering field, for both educational and professional purposes. The interest in digital SGs has increased even more in the last years of covid-19 pandemic, due to their location-independent availability and to the possibility to use SGs to apply theoretical knowledge and involve the users in a challenging way. Since the beginning of project XXXX in October 2018, the University of Xxxx started to develop a brand-new SG with a strong focus on Operation and Supply Chain Management. The game has been studied as a multiplayer cooperative and competitive game which projects learners in a fictitious universe where multiple companies compete against each other in the same market. The realization of the game started from the definition of the didactical concept, underwent the user acceptance testing phases (alpha and beta tests) up until reach the release and the corresponding final evaluation feedback.
... With the technological developments in operations research, war games, computer technology, and education theory, educators started integrating these games into business courses in the late 1950s [10]. Games such as the Beer Distribution Game [11] and the Markstrat Simulation Game [12] were released in the following years and gained popularity among educators. ...
Over the last few years, business simulation games (BSGs) in higher education have attracted attention. BSGs tend to actively engage students with course material, promoting higher engagement and motivation and enabling learning outcomes. Increasingly, researchers are trying to explore the full potential of these games with an upsurge of research in the BSG field in recent years. There is a need to understand the current state of research and future research opportunities; however, there is a lack of recent systematic literature reviews in BSG literature. This study addresses this gap by systematically compiling online empirical research from January 2015 to April 2022. We followed PRISMA guidelines to identify fifty-seven (57) papers reporting empirical evidence of the effectiveness of BSGs in teaching and learning. Findings showed that BSGs improve learning outcomes such as knowledge acquisition, cognitive and interactive skills, and behaviour. The review also summarises different issues concerning the integration of BSGs into the curriculum, learning theories used in the selected studies, and assessment methods used to evaluate student achievement in learning outcomes. The findings of this review summarise the current research activities and indicate existing deficiencies and potential research directions that can be used as the basis for future research into the use of BSGs in higher education.
... This characteristic of SGs enables students to make mistakes without causing real damage, thus making SGs ideal tools for the teaching of Operation and Supply Chain Management (Reese, 2011). As already existing examples of SCM SG, it is possible to find the Beer Game (Kaminsky & Levi, 1998), which is card-based and probably the most known and used. AUSUM (Cro we, 2011) is a game focused on the dynamics of supply chain management in the automobile sector. ...
The digitalisation or virtualisation of lab equipment in higher education promises numerous benefits for all those involved. Economic benefits from sharing lab infrastructures, convenient remote access to labs anytime and anywhere, as well as the sharing and linking of lab-based lectures are just some of the advantages that come to mind when thinking of online lab infrastructures. However, the technical, didactical and organisational effort required to digitalise labs should not be underestimated. The different chapters of this book provide insights into these different aspects from the perspectives of both researchers and lecturers. With contributions by Hadi Adineh, Tobias Ableitner, Majsa Ammouriova, Jannicke Baalsrud Hauge, Massimo Bertolini, Martin Burghardt, Michael Canz, Juliana Castaneda, Jens Doveren, Matthias Ehlenz, Thomas Eppler, Giovanni Esposito, Peter Ferdinand, Matas Führer, Jens Glembin, Myriam Guedey, Felix Gers, Yasmin Hayat, Roland Heinrich, Karsten Henke, Clara Henkel, Birte Heinemann, Nils Höhner, Andrej Itrich, Marc Philipp Jensen, Valentin Kammerlohr, Rushed Kanawati, Abdelmajid Khelil, Michael Klein, Sebastian Koch, Johannes Kretzschmar, Jean-Vincent Loddo, Davide Mezzogori, Johannes Nau, Mattia Neroni, David Paradice, Angel A. Juan Perez, Anke Pfeiffer, Tobias Christian Piller, Paul Press, Steffen Prowe, Giovanni Romagnoli, Benedikt Reuter, Davide Reverberi, Peter Rödler, David Romero, David Schepkowski, Ulrik Schroeder, Jan Seedorf, Detlef Streitferdt, Peter Treffinger, Dieter Uckelmann and Gottfried Zimmermann.
... In the context of educational research, game-based learning approaches are always popular for enhancing the teaching effectiveness and learning engagement, for example the beer game for learning supply chain management concepts [7] and Run Marco for learning programming concepts [8]. The above educational games generally lead to a number of research questions for examining students' interest, performance, and satisfaction towards enriching science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education [9]. ...
Although blockchain is regarded as a promising and revolutionary technology, not everyone, particular non-technical students, can effectively understand and appraise its mechanism. To spread knowledge of blockchain technology, an online educational game for learning blockchain concepts named ‘BlockTrainHK’ is designed and developed from the React Native framework. Users from multi-disciplinary backgrounds can experience the block mining process, where the whole journey of building the blockchain and other advanced concepts, including immutability, Merkle tree, and zero knowledge proof, can be revealed, such that technical barriers of learning blockchain can be overcome.
... However, many experts criticize this Beer Game simulation. Kaminsky and Simchi-Levi [4] stated Beer Game has many shortcomings among which students are generally tied to the mechanism of the game which can affect the actual supply chain scenario. Kimbrough [5] stated a lack of motivation to improve during the game as players are not encouraged to share information. ...
... Motivated by Sterman (1989Sterman ( , 1992, a number of experimental studies have used the Beer Distribution Game (BDG) to explore behavioral causes for the bullwhip effect and methods for dampening it (see Chen and Wu 2018, for a review). Kaminsky and Simchi-Levi (1998) find that reducing the ordering and shipment lags decrease overall supply chain costs even though order amplification remains the same. Gupta et al. (2002) and Steckel et al. (2004) also show that reducing lead times leads to lower costs. ...
Problem Definition: We empirically examine a complementary behavioral source of the bullwhip effect that has been previously overlooked in the literature: that individuals order more aggressively (i.e., overreact) when they face shortages than when they hold inventory. Methodology/Results: We conduct a behavioral experiment using the Beer Distribution Game. We estimate decision rules using multi-level modeling approaches that overcome several drawbacks of the estimation methods used in the earlier literature. We find robust evidence that, contrary to the overreaction when in backlog hypothesis and reports from popular press, decision-makers order less aggressively and become insensitive to the scope of the problem when in backlog-a scope neglect phenomenon. Managerial Implications: We propose a dual-process theoretical account predicated on affective reactions to explain this scope neglect. Our results suggest that affective reactions under novel operating conditions or dramatic events in supply chains, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, can overwhelm cognitive processing of managers and make them fail to recognize the full scope of the problems faced and update decision models accordingly. Understanding the cognitive-affective drivers of ordering behaviors that generate supply chain instability is important in designing interventions to mitigate their negative effects.
... The Bullwhip effect, centralization and the lead time effects are also taught by this simulation. [75] The game also teaches that most issues are coming from a wrongly planned system and not from individual mistakes which is an important phenomenon of quality management [76,77]. The success of the Beer Game in education induced newer, modified versions of the game. ...
Various studies confirm the positive outcomes of business simulation games, which can be effectively used in the education of manufacturing and supply chain processes. The use of them in education increases business knowledge, causes better understanding of business processes, improves decision making, problem-solving, and interpersonal communication skills. General business simulation games with manufacturing functions included are described briefly. Twenty-two specialized manufacturing and supply chain simulations are discussed in detail showing their features and decision-making possibilities. The study is useful for educators, trainers, and companies looking for practical learning methods. The discussion of the games gives them an opportunity to better understand available business simulations and be able to choose the appropriate one for their expected learning outcomes.
... To better contextualize the multiplayer serious game object of this study, the most relevant supply chain and operations management serious games will be briefly discussed. Relatively to the first group, the Beer Game [11], originally designed as a multiplayer card game, is probably the most known and used one. Players represent different tiers of a supply chain and interact with each other to fulfill customer's demand; in doing so, they experience naturally arising dynamics of a supply chain, such as the bullwhip effect. ...
We present an innovative, cooperative, and competitive multiplayer serious game, suited for the educational needs of supply chain and operation management post-graduate students. Hence, the objective is to satisfy the ever-increasing requirement of students to have the ability to experience and practice the theory learned in traditional ways, for active knowledge acquisition. To cope with such needs, we designed and implemented a multiplayer online serious game, that provides players with a realistic industrial experience, and teaches them how to take a whole range of day-to day and medium-term challenging decisions. Learners are divided into teams, each one representing an Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM), in every team the students will collaborate and will compete in the same market, and sharing a limited set of suppliers. To this aim they have to define a strategy to target the best market segmentation. Teachers have the possibility to investigate the decision patters of the learners, analyze KPIs and learning analytics, to better understand the learning process and guide the learners in their educational journey. By means of a preliminary questionnaire, the interest in using the serious game to study operation management was confirmed. In addition, the game was tested by a small group of students, who acknowledged the effectiveness of the game's dynamics as a tool to complement traditional teaching methods.
... However, many experts criticize the Beer Game simulation. Kaminsky and Simchi-Levi (1998) point out that the Beer Game has a few limitations such as students are generally so occupied with the mechanics of the game that it cannot reflect a realistic supply chain scenario. Kimbrough et al (2002) pointed out a lack of motivation for improvement during the course of the game since players are not encouraged to share information with each other. ...
This paper presents a new practical game which helps undergraduate students to understand how the concept of supply chain management (SCM) works. The game uses a simple supply chain structure incorporating three entities of the supply chain: supplier, plant, and customer. The game employs a set of toy building blocks such as LEGO® blocks and has the rules of the game, responsibility of each player, product descriptions and bill of materials. This competitive game is used supply chain cost as the measuring to determine the winner team of the game and the Bloom's taxonomy as guidelines to develop the assessment testing based on the learning objectives of courses. This proposed board game has been tested by many undergraduate students who are taking SCM and Logistics Management courses. The results show that the students who played the game reached the higher scores of assessment testing than students who didn't play the game. Furthermore, most students have also positive view about this game.
... Games are limited in the sense that generally nothing can be rigorously proved from the game in itself, but they do provide a valuable source of anecdotal evidence and are a good learning device. Other authors have extended or computerised the beer game including van Ackere et al (1993), Kaminsky and Simchi-Levi (1998), Lambrecht and Dejonckheere (1999a and b). ♦ Empirical studies; a number of authors have investigated the impact of ICT on the supply chain including Holmström (1998), Fransoo and Wouters (2000), Kaipia, Holmström and Tanskanen (2000). ...
The Internet and related information and communication technologies (ICT) have recently enabled the cost-effective dissemination of information between disparate parties in the supply chain. New supply chain strategies, such as Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI), Collaborative Planning, Forecasting and Replenishment (CPFR) and Efficient Consumer Response (ECR), have begun to exploit these new communication channels, principally at the retail end of the supply chain. The impact of the eBusiness enabled supply chain on
manufacturers and materials/component suppliers is, however, less well understood and exploited. This paper is aimed at establishing eBusiness enabled supply chain models for quantifying the impact of ICT, in particular its effect on dynamic behaviour. The paper concludes that simple, yet robust, models enable considerable quantitative insights into the impact of eBusiness on supply chain dynamic behaviour prior to their implementation.
... In addition to the typical 100 percent step increase in demand, we ran simulations with 75, 50, and 25 percent increase in demand. We also used two different random demands: a normally distributed demand with a mean of six and the standard deviation of two, proposed by Kaminsky and Simchi-Levi (1998) and a uniformly distributed demand between zero and eight, proposed by Croson and Donohue (2002) . Finally, we simulated an exponentially growing demand with a five percent growth rate, sinus function mimicking seasonal oscillations, and a pulse demand with multiple short shocks to the system. ...
Inequity aversion models developed by Fehr and Schmidt (1999) and Bolton and Ockenfels (2000) assume that, in addition to purely selfish subjects, there are subjects who dislike inequitable outcomes. Within the supply chain management literature, these models were used to study fairness concerns. A common limitation in this research area has been the use of rather simple settings, mainly dyadic channels with a single supplier and retailer. Thus, researching social preferences in different channel structures and the idea of multiple-player groups have been suggested as interesting future research areas. In this paper, we present dynamic analyses of the two inequity aversion models and their application in the Beer Distribution Game setting. Our simulation results challenge currently held assumptions about fairness perceptions among supply chain members. We provide some structural explanations for this and suggests future research areas.
... The Beer Game provides teams of players an environment to simulate the operations of a single product distribution supply chain in which each member manages the inventory of a retailer, wholesaler, distributor, and manufacturer. There are many modifications to the game including computer-based versions [15] [16] and Web-based versions [17]. The "Siemens Briefcase Game" (another supply chain game developed by Siemens). ...
... However, many experts criticize the Beer Game simulation. Kaminsky and Simchi-Levi (1998) point out that the Beer Game has a few limitations such as students are generally so occupied with the mechanics of the game that it cannot reflect a realistic supply chain scenario. Kimbrough et al (2002) pointed out a lack of motivation for improvement during the course of the game since players are not encouraged to share information with each other. ...
This paper presents a new practical game which helps undergraduate students to understand how the concept of supply chain management (SCM) works. The game uses a simple supply chain structure incorporating three entities of the supply chain: supplier, plant, and customer. The game employs a set of toy building blocks such as LEGO® blocks and has the rules of the game, responsibility of each player, product descriptions and bill of materials. This competitive game is used supply chain cost as the measuring to determine the winner team of the game and the Bloom's taxonomy as guidelines to develop the assessment testing based on the learning objectives of courses. This proposed board game has been tested by many undergraduate students who are taking SCM and Logistics Management courses. The results show that the students who played the game reached the higher scores of assessment testing than students who didn't play the game. Furthermore, most students have also positive view about this game.
... BSGs refer to instructions provided by personal computers to immerse trainees in a manual business environment for decisionmaking and management knowledge to understand the consequences of their decisions without having to experiment in a real business environment (Sitzmann, 2011). Taking the most well-known Beer Distribution Game as an example, the role-playing simulation exercise of simple production and distribution system has been used in countless business education courses and widely studied in the literature because it was first developed at MIT Sloan School of Management (Costas, Ponte, de la Fuente, Lozano, & Parren˜o, 2017;Kaminsky & Simchi-Levi, 1998). This simple game has proven to be very effective in helping trainees to understand the causal relationship between decision-making and supply chain behavior (Goodwin & Franklin, 1994). ...
Business simulation games (BSGs) are educational tools that help students develop business management knowledge and skills. However, to date, relatively little research has investigated the factors that influence students’ BSG usage intention. Grounded on the extended unified theory of acceptance and use of technology, this study helped to fill this gap by exploring intention to use BSGs. Specifically, this study investigated the influence of performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, facilitating conditions, hedonic motivation, and price value on behavioral intention to use BSGs. Data collected from 141 useful respondents were tested against the research model using partial least square approach. The results of this study indicated that behavioral intention to use BSGs was influenced by facilitating conditions, hedonic motivation, and price value. Unexpectedly, performance expectancy, effort expectancy, and social influence were not predictive of students’ behavioral intention to use BSGs. These findings enhanced our understanding of students’ BSG usage behavior and provided several important theoretical and practical implications for the application of BSG in the context of business and management education.
... It creates a context where each organization does not have global information but owns good local information (Sterman 1989). Participants in the game realize that a lack of global information induces irrational behaviors of organizations and their interactions in the supply chain; it creates aggregate dynamics, a so-called bullwhip effect, to diverge from global optimization (Sterman 1989;Kaminsky & Simchi-Levi 1998). ...
This research discusses how system dynamics is used to develop an educational game, called CANDY OG, to learn how to improve supply chain performance under conflict of key performance indicators (KPIs). Its objective is to explore applicability of system dynamics to design a business game for fostering interpersonal skills. A causal loop diagram is used to confirm the game design so that the participants can learn by playing about importance of understanding other stakeholder’s mental model to improve supply chain performance. The game was played for experiments to evaluate effectiveness of the game design by surveys and other qualitative methods such as samples’ memos during the game, follow-up interviews and participatory observations. Our experimental results suggest a possibility that the game provides experiential learning to develop interpersonal skills at managing conflicts of KPIs, and thus indicate that the use of system dynamics helps to ensure appropriate designing of the game. The originality is a use of system dynamics for designing an educational game, leveraging its capability to analyze mental models of stakeholders in a system.
... As in previous studies, they find that decision makers ignore the supply line and in case of shortage, they saturate OQ adjustment at a maximum value instead of overreacting. In experimental studies, researchers show that shorter ordering and shipment lead-times improve decentralised supply chain performance under periodic review (e.g., Kaminsky and Simchi-Levi, 1998;Kimbrough et al., 2002;Steckel et al., 2004). Also, sharing point of sale information (e.g., Croson and Donohue, 2003;Gupta et al., 2001;Steckel et al., 2004), using electronic data interchange (Machuca and Barajas, 2004), and communication (Wu and Katok, 2006), can significantly improve decentralised supply chain performance under periodic review. ...
Inventory managers do not predominantly follow normative optimisation models. At best, they introduce a level of bounded rationality in their inventory replenishment decisions. This paper examines the behaviour of inventory decision-makers under continuous review in a decentralised supply chain, using an experimental approach with unknown market demand and local information availability. The analysis reveals that not only the magnitude and the variability of order quantity tend to be larger, but also that the order-time intervals is lengthen and highly variable while moving upstream along the supply chain. The role of the inventory managers' replenishment decisions on the echelon holding, backorder, and total costs, is also investigated. Finally, a normative model is designed and its solutions are compared to the experimental results. It is observed that humans do not operate in a perfectly optimal way, but are generally reluctant to risk increasing backorder costs and reducing inventory carrying cost, even if this would lead to lower total cost.
... These cognitive limitations trigger a surplus of capital investment, excess or inadequate stock, the hiring and firing of workforce, difficulties with demand forecasting and manufacturing programming, as well as delivery delays and impacts on competitiveness Nienhaus, Ziegenbein, & Duijts, 2006;Wang & Disney, 2016). In general, the Bullwhip Effect makes management and efficient operation of the system difficult, since available resources are not used efficiently (Kaminsky & Simchi-Levi, 1998). Different industries around the world have felt the impact of the Bullwhip Effect, for example, Pampers diapers Wang & Disney, 2016), General Electric in 1958, Motorola in 1993, Cisco in 2000, and Tesco in 2007 to name just a few. ...
One of the most nefarious consequences of violent conflicts is forced displacement. Refugee crises have impacts on both the refugees’ place of origin (e.g., loss of human capital) and the places where they resettle (e.g., demands on health systems). Humanitarian information technologies (IT) can be used to collect, process and analyze information that may contribute to improving the livelihoods of refugees. This chapter summarizes the role of humanitarian IT in assisting refugees or organizations that provide services to them in the four steps of the refugee pathway: displacement (e.g., collecting information about the current situation), journey (e.g., providing information about the closest services on a map), temporary settlement (e.g., monitoring health programs of refugee camps), and permanent settlement (e.g., processing refugee resettlement in a new country).
... There are several variants of the beer distribution game in the literature, these includes the stationary beer game [14], computer simulated beer game (e.g. [45,46]) and online beer game [42]. This game aims to introduce the basic concepts of the bullwhip effect and the benefits of information sharing and lead-time reduction. ...
Game-based learning has been introduced as an interactive tool to facilitate learning and training processes in various fields, including supply chain management (SCM). Most of these games are specifically designed to focus on certain scenarios and concepts. For example, the original beer distribution game focuses on a single product supply chain without considering capacity and process reliability into account. This creates challenges for extending the games to cover other concepts in SCM. To tackle this problem, we propose a board game, titled ThinkLog, as a face-to-face extendable framework to facilitate learning in SCM. It can be extended to generate different scenarios for various concepts in SCM without changing the basic game structure. Using this principle, we have extended the basic version of ThinkLog to two other scenarios, namely: humanitarian logistics and urban logistics, by simply modifying the rule of the game. Each scenario would have different learning objectives embedded in the gameplay. The game is also complemented with a computer-based application (digital application) to enhance the overall learning experience and collect relevant data (data gathering) during a game session. These three scenarios have been evaluated on four-interactive sessions with government officials and policy- makers in Indonesia. Each session has been consistent in its acceptance of the game as a tool to facilitate learning in SCM, regardless of the scenarios that we played. Our learning objective evaluation also shows that the game is effective in deepening the players' understanding of SCM concepts. © 2018 Advances in Science, Technology and Engineering Systems.All right reserved.
... As in previous studies, they find that decision makers ignore the supply line and in case of shortage, they saturate OQ adjustment at a maximum value instead of overreacting. In experimental studies, researchers show that shorter ordering and shipment lead-times improve decentralised supply chain performance under periodic review (e.g., Kaminsky and Simchi-Levi, 1998;Kimbrough et al., 2002;Steckel et al., 2004). Also, sharing point of sale information (e.g., Croson and Donohue, 2003;Gupta et al., 2001;Steckel et al., 2004), using electronic data interchange (Machuca and Barajas, 2004), and communication (Wu and Katok, 2006), can significantly improve decentralised supply chain performance under periodic review. ...
... To prepare business and industrial engineering students for the issues that arise in implementing and participating in RAs in practice, we present a pedagogical simulation game with the primary learning goal of allowing students to experientially learn the unique RA bidding process through real-time thoughtful decisions in fictitious scenarios using as little as seven minutes of class time. While much smaller in scale and scope, the game is intended to play a similar role in introducing RAs as classroom games such as the Beer Game has done for issues in supply chain operations (Kaminsky and Simchi-Levi 1998). ...
A reverse auction is a common way of executing supply chain sourcing. This article presents a spreadsheet-based game, the BucknellAuto game, that simulates the bidding process in a reverse auction. Students play the seller role and vie for the buyer's demand request by bidding against the automated competitors. The BucknellAuto game allows students to experientially learn not only the competitive bidding process of the reverse auction but also the implications of the auction parameters on the bidding competitiveness. The BucknellAuto game serves as a pedagogical tool for efficiently and effectively introducing the reverse auction to undergraduate students in a fun and interactive way.
... In a nutshell, the Sterman formula attempts to model the way human players over-or under-react to situations they observe in the supply chain such as shortages or excess inventory. Subsequent behavioral studies using the beer game include [16,6,9] and [10]. Scenario based analysis also includes [36,14] which propose some scenarios and analyze them through simulation. ...
The beer game is a widely used in-class game that is played in supply chain management classes to demonstrate the bullwhip effect. The game is a decentralized, multi-agent, cooperative problem that can be modeled as a serial supply chain network in which agents cooperatively attempt to minimize the total cost of the network even though each agent can only observe its own local information.
Each agent chooses order quantities to replenish its stock.
Under some conditions, a base-stock replenishment policy is known to be optimal. However, in a decentralized supply chain in which some agents (stages) may act irrationally (as they do in the beer game), there is no known optimal policy for an agent wishing to act optimally.
We propose a machine learning algorithm, based on deep Q-networks, to optimize the replenishment decisions at a given stage. When playing alongside agents who follow a base-stock policy, our algorithm obtains near-optimal order quantities. It performs much better than a base-stock policy when the other agents use a more realistic model of human ordering behavior. Unlike most other algorithms in the literature, our algorithm does not have any limits on the beer game parameter values. Like any deep learning algorithm, training the algorithm can be computationally intensive, but this can be performed ahead of time; the algorithm executes in real time when the game is played. Moreover, we propose a transfer learning approach so that the training performed for one agent and one set of cost coefficients can be adapted quickly for other agents and costs. Our algorithm can be extended to other decentralized multi-agent cooperative games with partially observed information, which is a common type of situation in real-world supply chain problems.
... Beyond examples of navigational decision making using auditory signals, there is also evidence of sonification aiding in other types of more complex decision making. Whether it be monitoring network traffic [5] or keeping track of multiple task prioritization [6] [7], auditory display greatly enhances the user experience as a background process. Rather than distracting from the task at hand, users are simply listening for changes in their auditory background to indicate their attention is needed elsewhere. ...
When it comes to understanding our environment, we use all our senses. Within the study and implementation of virtual environments and systems, huge advancements in the quality of visuals and graphics have been made, but when it comes to the audio in our environment, many people have been content with very basic sound information. Video games have strived towards powerful sound design, both for player immersion and information perception. Research exists showing how we can use audio sources and waypoints to navigate environments, and how we can perceive information from audio in our surroundings. This research explores using sonification of changing environmental data and environmental objects to improve user's perception of virtual spaces and navigation within simulated environments, with case studies looking at training and for remote operation of unmanned vehicles. This would also expand into how general awareness and perception of dynamic 3D environments can be improved. Our research is done using the Unity3D game engine to create a virtual environment, within which users navigate around water currents represented both visually and through sonification of their information using Csound, a C based programming language for sound and music creation.
... The above research objectives are mainly addressed through a quasi-experiment comprising two groups (59 undergraduate students), as well as several pre/post-questionnaires and tests. Mirroring the development of classical approaches taught in SCM/OM-related courses such as the Beer game and ERP simulation system (Cronan, Douglas, Alnuaimi, & Schmidt, 2011;Simchi-Levi, 1998), the proposed auction u-learning system is expected to allocate auction-related cases and problems automatically. Meanwhile, the system intends to establish the simulated auction bidding sessions in which learners can authentically participate by playing different user roles, such as auctioneer or bidder. ...
As the most critical trading mechanism in supply chain management/operation management fields, Dutch auction theories and practices have been regarded as one of the key teaching subjects of many universities. The advancement of ubiquitous computing technologies has not only solved the technological problems of dealing with millions of simultaneous biddings in real practices, but also enabled students to learn elusive and complex knowledge in an interactive environment. However, little attention was paid to educational discussions and quantitative analyses when applying the ubiquitous learning (u-learning) system in auction classes. This quasi-experimental study was among the first to develop and evaluate a smart u-learning system that integrated Internet-of-Things (IoT) technologies to simulate real, authentic auction activities, while detecting learning behaviors of students. We also integrated and utilized the pedagogical approach of Teaching by Examples and Learning by Doing (TELD) in the presented system, which further strengthened dynamic interactions and timely teaching instructions for students. The data analysis showed that this innovative system had positive effects on students’ learning outcomes. The results also revealed that applying the u-learning system in teaching procedural knowledge, rather than conceptual knowledge, was more resource effective and less time consuming. Moreover, students had high perceptions of learning content when the system was designed with efficient pedagogical assistance, interaction flexibility and user-friendly features. Critical practical implications were also summarized for teachers, system designers, researchers, and policymakers.
... The BDG scenario is defined by a single-product linear supply chain, composed of four main levels: factory, distributor, wholesaler, and retailer (e.g. Kaminsky and Simchi-Levi 1998). At the beginning of each turn (a simulated week), the different levels receive the product from the previous level (material flow) and an order from the next level (information flow). ...
The Beer Distribution Game (BDG) is a widely used experiential learning simulation game aimed at teaching the basic concepts around Supply Chain Management (SCM). The goal in this problem is to minimize inventory costs while avoiding stock-outs –hence the players face the dilemma between storage and shortage. Human players usually get confused giving rise to significant inefficiencies in the supply chain, such as the Bullwhip Effect. This research paper shows how artificial agents are capable of playing the BDG effectively. In order to solve the dilemma, we have integrated supply chain processes (i.e. a collaborative functioning) through the Drum-Buffer-Rope (DBR) methodology. This technique, from Goldratt’s Theory of Constraints (TOC), is based on bottleneck management. In comparison to traditional alternatives, results bring evidence of the great advantages induced in the BDG by the systems thinking. Both the agent-based approach and the BDG exercise have proved to be very effective in illustrating managers the underlying structure of supply chain phenomenon.
... One of the famous examples of such a setting is the beer distribution game designed by MIT (Sterman, 1989). A computerized version of this game is developed by (Kaminsky & Simchi-Levi, 1998). This game is mainly used for education purpose, but we argue that such a setting can be used to collect information about decision making parameters and behavioural attributes of the player to use as a validation reference. ...
Efficiency of city logistics activities suffers due to conflicting personal preferences and distributed decision making by multiple city logistics stakeholders. This is exacerbated by interdependency of city logistics activities, decision making with limited information and stakeholders’ preference for personal objectives over system efficiency. Accordingly, the key to understanding the causes of inefficiency in the city logistics domain is understanding the interaction between heterogeneous stakeholders of the system. With the capabilities of representing a system in a natural and flexible way, agent based modelling (ABM) is a promising alternative for the city logistics domain. This research focuses on developing a framework for the successful implementation of the ABM approach for the city logistics domain. The framework includes various elements – a multi-perspective semantic data model (i.e. ontology) and its validation, the development of an agent base model using this ontology, and a validation approach for the agent-based model. Conclusively, the framework shows that a rigorous course can be taken to successfully implement agent based modelling approach for the city logistics domain.
... Paper Game. This task replicates the MIT Beer Game in a computer setting [20] and assesses a participant's ability to make decisions in a supply chain context. The participant played the role of a retailer and had to find a balance between inventory size, orders, and revenue for the entire supply chain over the course of a simulated year. ...
There are several different baseline techniques available for completing psychophysiological research, yet no overarching set of guidelines exists to help researchers choose the best method. This review examines several methods used in various fields and highlights the importance and pitfalls of each. As part of this effort we conducted a small study that examines three different baseline techniques. In line with the Law of Initial Value (LIV), outcomes signal a strong positive effect for measures when utilizing a resting baseline, a weaker positive effect when utilizing a baseline directly before tasking, and a nominal effect when calibrating using a comprehensive baseline. The authors caution future researchers to fully assess the needs of their experiment before utilizing comprehensive, vanilla, or resting baselines, and to weigh the consequences of the length and number of baselines utilized. Further investigation of low workload and vigilance tasking is needed to determine whether use of vanilla and comprehensive baselines provide better contrast than a resting baseline.
This paper critically examines the potential benefits and drawbacks of merging supply chain and social deduction game mechanics. From a practical standpoint, designing and implementing such a game requires careful calibration to ensure a balanced and engaging experience for all participants. Ethically, concerns arise regarding the potential for collusion and its impact on fairness and trust within the game. Additionally, legal implications may arise if the game inadvertently promotes or facilitates unethical behaviour or violates anti-competition laws. Ultimately, our aim is to encourage further exploration in this area while promoting responsible game design and fostering a conducive learning environment.
This article examines how students learn about data‐driven decision‐making by creating and using a dashboard to play an online version of the familiar Beer Game. The objective is to apply data visualization skills to a business system in a way that leads to effective decisions. The students not only build a dashboard in Tableau, they also use it as they make ordering decisions while playing a round of the Beer Game that has a seasonal ramp up/ramp down demand pattern. Our assessment indicates that the exercise provides an effective application of Tableau skills and raises awareness of important aspects of dashboard design. We continue to improve the exercise to emphasize that analytics solutions can only be developed with a solid understanding of the business system.
The five-volume set IFIP AICT 630, 631, 632, 633, and 634 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the International IFIP WG 5.7 Conference on Advances in Production Management Systems, APMS 2021, held in Nantes, France, in September 2021.*
The 378 papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 529 submissions. They discuss artificial intelligence techniques, decision aid and new and renewed paradigms for sustainable and resilient production systems at four-wall factory and value chain levels. The papers are organized in the following topical sections:
Part I: artificial intelligence based optimization techniques for demand-driven manufacturing; hybrid approaches for production planning and scheduling; intelligent systems for manufacturing planning and control in the industry 4.0; learning and robust decision support systems for agile manufacturing environments; low-code and model-driven engineering for production system; meta-heuristics and optimization techniques for energy-oriented manufacturing systems; metaheuristics for production systems; modern analytics and new AI-based smart techniques for replenishment and production planning under uncertainty; system identification for manufacturing control applications; and the future of lean thinking and practice
Part II: digital transformation of SME manufacturers: the crucial role of standard; digital transformations towards supply chain resiliency; engineering of smart-product-service-systems of the future; lean and Six Sigma in services healthcare; new trends and challenges in reconfigurable, flexible or agile production system; production management in food supply chains; and sustainability in production planning and lot-sizing
Part III: autonomous robots in delivery logistics; digital transformation approaches in production management; finance-driven supply chain; gastronomic service system design; modern scheduling and applications in industry 4.0; recent advances in sustainable manufacturing; regular session: green production and circularity concepts; regular session: improvement models and methods for green and innovative systems; regular session: supply chain and routing management; regular session: robotics and human aspects; regular session: classification and data management methods; smart supply chain and production in society 5.0 era; and supply chain risk management under coronavirus
Part IV: AI for resilience in global supply chain networks in the context of pandemic disruptions; blockchain in the operations and supply chain management; data-based services as key enablers for smart products, manufacturing and assembly; data-driven methods for supply chain optimization; digital twins based on systems engineering and semantic modeling; digital twins in companies first developments and future challenges; human-centered artificial intelligence in smart manufacturing for the operator 4.0; operations management in engineer-to-order manufacturing; product and asset life cycle management for smart and sustainable manufacturing systems; robotics technologies for control, smart manufacturing and logistics; serious games analytics: improving games and learning support; smart and sustainable production and supply chains; smart methods and techniques for sustainable supply chain management; the new digital lean manufacturing paradigm; and the role of emerging technologies in disaster relief operations: lessons from COVID-19
Part V: data-driven platforms and applications in production and logistics: digital twins and AI for sustainability; regular session: new approaches for routing problem solving; regular session: improvement of design and operation of manufacturing systems; regular session: crossdock and transportation issues; regular session: maintenance improvement and lifecycle management; regular session: additive manufacturing and mass customization; regular session: frameworks and conceptual modelling for systems and services efficiency; regular session: optimization of production and transportation systems; regular session: optimization of supply chain agility and reconfigurability; regular session: advanced modelling approaches; regular session: simulation and optimization of systems performances; regular session: AI-based approaches for quality and performance improvement of production systems; and regular session: risk and performance management of supply chains
*The conference was held online.
This chapter is devoted to present the evolution of the supply chains as the main structure for the production and distribution of goods to the final customers. The evolution of supply chains, as well as the factors influencing their growth are discussed in the chapter, together with some definitions and examples. An informal definition of a supply chain and their elements is also given. Next, the bullwhip effect is introduced as the principal factor affecting the dynamic performance of the supply chain, together with some figures showing its influence in terms of the increase of the supply chain costs across sectors and countries. We then present some of the causes of the bullwhip effect are introduced, along with the main barriers encountered to overcome it. Next, we discuss the need of models capable to capture the dynamics of the supply chain to better understand and reduce the bullwhip effect. The chapter concludes with a summary of the concepts and ideas presented and with the suggestion of several references for further reading.
A fundamental challenge in preparing for and responding to future threats and opportunities (including the South China Sea, ISIS and Boko Haram) involves maintaining collective identity resilience in the face of unanticipated sensemaking crises. Unpacking the meaning and rationale behind that deceptively simple claim and understanding its strategic implications are the primary foci of this monograph.
In the pages that follow the intended meaning of ‘identity resilience’ and
‘sensemaking crisis’ will be formalized along with an exposition on how these concepts together represent a promising new metric for evaluating future international relations strategies.
In addition, generative social science modeling will be put forward as destined to serve a critical role in any pragmatically consequential attempt to predict the socially beneficial consequences of future actions undertaken with the explicit intent to enhance overall social well-being in our increasingly connected world.
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When supply disruptions occur, firms want to employ an effective pricing strategy to reduce losses. However, firms typically do not know precisely how customers will react to price changes in the short term, during a disruption. In this article, we investigate the customer's order variability and the firm's profit under several representative heuristic pricing strategies, including no change at all (fixed pricing strategy), changing the price only (naive pricing strategy), and adjusting the belief and price simultaneously (one‐period correction [1PC] and regression pricing strategies). We show that the fixed pricing strategy creates the most stable customer order process, but it brings lower profit than the naive pricing strategy in most cases. The 1PC pricing strategy produces a more volatile customer order process and smaller profit than the naive one does. Although the regression pricing strategy is a more advanced approach, it leads to lower profit and greater customer order variability than the naive pricing strategy (but the opposite when compared to the 1PC strategy). We conclude that (i) completely eliminating the customer order variability by employing a fixed pricing strategy is not advisable and adjusting the price to match supply with demand is necessary to improve the profit; (ii) frequently adjusting the belief about customer behaviors under imperfect information may increase the customer's order variability and reduce the firm's profit. The conclusions are robust to the inventory assumption (i.e., without or with inventory carryover) and the firm's objective (i.e., market clearance or profit maximization).
Serious game has been introduced as an interactive tool to support learning and training, including conducting a formative assessment. It aims to help the students to understand specific and complex concepts, such as Supply Chain Management (SCM) concepts. Although many recent studies have identified the benefits of using games in a variety of contexts, there are very limited works on the effectiveness of games as a formative assessment tool in Problem-Based Learning (PBL) environment. Hence, this chapter aims to evaluate this type of game for the PBL environment. The research model to evaluate the game’s effectiveness as a formative assessment tool in PBL environment is designed to consider two main criteria, namely: learning objective and game experience. Learning objective criterion aims to measure the impacts of games to initiate learning and formative assessment processes by (1) motivating the students to explore and expose themselves to new knowledge and skill independently and (2) enabling the students to conduct a self-assessment. While game experience criterion focuses on creating an enjoyable learning environment for voluntary learning. We use this research model to evaluate three digital Supply Chain games, namely: Beer Distribution game, ACE E-Commerce game and Disaster Relief game in PBL classrooms. The results show that these games improve students’ perceived learning by providing motivation and a positive learning experience.
The project CAASC “Cloud Adaptation for an Agile Supply Chain” (French ANR project) aims to develop monitoring services in multi actors supply chain, by integrating uncertainties in supply chain planning and developing adaptation functions to environment changes. In this paper we present a use case in the form of a serious game that aim to emerge and validate the required functionalities for the project. The game simulates a collaborative rolling horizon mid-term planning process. By analyzing its processes and results, we identify the central role of deviations analysis of plans to qualify uncertainties, assess robustness and propose response strategies.
One of the most frequent and costly problems in supply chains is known as the Bullwhip Effect, where order fluctuation amplifies as orders move higher up the supply chain. A small variation in final customer demand causes the supplier’s production to fluctuate at the other end of the chain. In this chapter, we analyze the Bullwhip Effect when competition is included at a wholesale level, considering the heterogeneity in decision rules from Agent-Based Simulation, System Dynamics, and Economic Experiments. Thereafter, the supplier invests in their capacity to complete the orders. Our results show that customers tend to inflate their orders when faced with exhausted products and different delays in the system.
The aim of this research for was to measure the user acceptance of simulator application which was built as a tool for student in learning of supply chain, particularly in bullwhip effect problem. The measurements used for the acceptance of supply chain simulator application in this research was the Technology Acceptance Model from 162 samples which were analyzed with Confirmatory Factor Analysis and Structural Equation Modelling. The result of this research indicated that the user acceptance (shown by customer participation) of supply chain simulator was directly influence by perceived usefulness of supply chain simulator application used (positive and significant); the user acceptance of supply chain simulator was indirectly influenced by perceived ease of use in using supply chain simulator application (positive but not significant); the user acceptance of supply chain simulator was indirectly influenced by perceived enjoyment when the supply chain simulator application was used. The research would give a better understanding about a bullwhip effect and better experience for students, which would not be obtained through conventional learning, when the tools were not used.
Überblick
Erfolgsreiches Supply Chain Management setzt die gesamthafte Betrachtung, Planung und Steuerung der Logistikketten voraus.
Der Umgang mit komplexen, dynamischen und intransparenten Entscheidungssituationen entlang der Logistikkette kann durch den Einsatz logistikbezogener Planspiele und Simulatoren geübt werden. Dazu kann eine ganze Palette von Planspielen, die auf unterschiedliche Aspekte des Supply Chain Managements abzielen, eingesetzt werden.
In diesem Zusammenhang werden drei am Institut für Industrie und Fertigungswirtschaft entwickelte Logistikplanspiele bzw. Simulatoren vorgestellt: Das als Erweiterung des traditionellen Bier-Spiels konzipierte Supply Chain Competition, das Unternehmensplanspiel Lean Production mit einem dazugehörigen Simulationstool sowie ein mehr strategisch ausgerichtetes Gruppenplanspiel aus dem Bereich der Paketdienstleister.
Durch den multimedialen Charakter der einzelnen Planspiele können die darin enthaltenen Konzepte den Studierenden erfolgreich vermittelt werden; der spielerische Aspekt sorgt dafür, dass auch die Motivation der Teilnehmer hoch bleibt.
This paper introduces an apparel distribution game (non-computerised classroom experiment) in the class of fashion supply chain management (FSCM). The apparel distribution game creates a lot of excitement, and helps subjects better understand how the fashion supply chain works. Playing this interactive game provides students an environment of active learning. This paper first introduces how the game was played in the FSCM class and what knowledge students can learn. This game not only provides the important insights of fashion supply chains and helps students understand the complex dynamic systems within the fashion supply chain, but also is fun to play. After playing the apparel distribution game, participants can identify the bullwhip effects and where the bullwhip effects come from. Moreover, participants learn several ways to effectively cope with the bullwhip effects in the fashion supply chains.
Information systems play a massive role in measuring, analyzing, improving and controlling educational environment. In this paper researchers evaluated impact of Innov8.0, 3D online game on supply chain management education environment. This study evaluated the effects of game based education rather than traditional classroom on motivation of tertiary level students. To measure the efficiency of educators' reliance on this game to lift students' motivation in learning from games to boost students' motivation in learning, the authors conducted an experimental study and used the Keller's ARCS instruments as motivation measurement inventory. The results indicate significant improvement to motivation of the experimental versus control group. This paper scientifically addresses impact of Innov8.0 as a tool for teaching supply chain management education, discusses data of field tests and finally describes the results.
With recent development of personal computer, interactive learning tools for educational purposes have evolved, from the use of blackboard and physical objects to the recent use of graphical animations on Personal Computers and Tablet PCs. The use of technology not only increases the effectiveness of personal computer as an educational tool, it also helps in engaging a learner. In this paper we attempt to create a computerized version of the popular beer program albeit with the use of 3D animation using an off-shelf simulation tool namely FlexsimTM Simulation System. The approach has expanded the usage of an industrial simulation tool from just a simulation and modelling tool to be used as a platform for interactive game development for educational purpose. With the built-in feature in 3D graphic animation it also shorten the time required to develop the game model.
This chapter reports on the evaluation methods and findings from serious games for teaching production/ engineering. Two serious games are considered: Cosiga, a new product development simulation game and Beware, a risk management simulation game. These two games cover the front and middle parts of the engineering process - from design to manufacture to sale. For the Cosiga simulation evaluations of the communication, cognitive change and situational awareness were performed. For the Beware game evaluation of communication, risk awareness and improvement of risk management skills were performed The findings from the evaluations showed that serious games deliver learning outcomes. However, there are drawbacks to their use that need to be taken into account. Principally the high cost of development and the need for expert facilitators for running game sessions.
Studies in the psychology of individual choice have identified numerous cognitive and other bounds on human rationality, often producing systematic errors and biases. Yet for the most part models of aggregate phenomena in management science and economics are not consistent with such micro-empirical knowledge of individual decision-making. One explanation has been the difficulty of extending the experimental methods used to study individual decisions to aggregate, dynamic settings. This paper reports an experiment on the generation of macrodynamics from microstructure in a common managerial context. Subjects manage a simulated inventory distribution system which contains multiple actors, feedbacks, nonlinearities, and time delays. The interaction of individual decisions with the structure of the simulated firm produces aggregate dynamics which systematically diverge from optimal behavior. An anchoring and adjustment heuristic for stock management is proposed as a model of the subjects' decision processes. Econometric tests show the rule explains the subjects' behavior well. The estimation results identify several `misperceptions of feedback' which account for the poor performance of the subjects. In particular, subjects are shown to be insensitive to the feedbacks from their decisions to the environment. Finally, the generality of the results is considered and implications for behavioral theories of aggregate social and economic dynamics are explored.