The
Beer Distribution Game
was developed at MIT in 1960. It is used daily all around the
globe, in different contexts : at university, corporate trainings,
seminars, coaching sessions..
Students control a facility (store, warehouse, factory..) part of
the supply-chain of a beer company. Their goal is to supply the
right amount of units throughout the chain so that final customers
can be served.
It lets participants experience :
-
Basic supply-chain concepts : stock, lead time, costs, orders,
demand
-
The bullwhip effect : erratic variations of demand,
which increase as we move up the chain
-
The effects of human behaviours, how collaboration and team work
can impact global performance
-
The effects of several supply parameters : visibility, batches,
prices fluctuations..
The beergame app lets you organize beergame sessions much more
easily. Students can use a computer or their phone to play, all
the data is stored in your instructor account and statistics are
calculated automatically.
👋 My name is Mathias Le Scaon. I gratuated in Industrial
Engineering and worked for several years as Supply-Chain planner
and manager. Before the beergame app, I also used to develop PC
games as side-projects and won 2 independent video-games
competitions.
A first online beer game simulation was released in 2015. Between
then and 2019, more than 200.000 parties were created with it. After
several interviews with users I decided to re-write the application
to include more features, and an instructor Dashboard.