Play the Beer Game

The Beer Game: Experience the Bullwhip Effect in Action. Think you understand supply chain dynamics? The Beer Game might surprise you. This free online simulation puts you in charge of one stage of a beer supply chain—manufacturer, distributor, wholesaler, or retailer—and challenges you to meet fluctuating customer demand with limited visibility and delayed feedback.As the game unfolds, you'll witness the bullwhip effect firsthand: how small shifts in demand can ripple upstream, causing wild swings in inventory, inefficiency, and frustration. It's an eye-opening way to explore how poor communication, lead time delays, and siloed decision-making lead to costly imbalances, and how to prevent them.This simulation is ideal for supply chain professionals, students, and teams looking to build systems thinking and collaboration skills.

How to play the Beer Game

Our supply chain Beer Game is a virtual simulation. It's similar to a game developed by MIT Professor Jay Forrester
in the 1960s to illustrate the dynamics of supply chains.

How many people can play the beer game?

There are four layers – the beer retailer, the wholesaler. the distributor and the manufacturer. It lasts an hour at most and simulates up to a year in the beer-distribution supply chain.

In this version of the game, you take part as a single player in the role of Distributor. The other roles will be played by AI bots.

How does the Beer Game work?

Each week, the retailer places a beer order with the wholesaler. They do the same with the distributor and the distributor with the manufacturer.

Whatever your role, you must avoid running out of stock, while keeping inventory costs down and bringing the supply chain to equilibrium as quickly as possible.

Achieving equilibrium

You achieve equilibrium when each player reaches the target stock level and orders the same amount of beer each week for four consecutive weeks.

Try our other supply chain game