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Understand the Bullwhip effect with our online Beer Game
What is the Bullwhip Effect, and why is it costing you money?
The Bullwhip Effect is all about excess inventory and lost sales opportunities. Our Skill Dynamics Beer Game helps you and your team gain deep insights into the Bullwhip Effect, so that you can prevent stockouts and excess inventory in real life. And all within a safe, replaceable and free simulation.
How to play the Beer Game
Our 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 can play?
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 vear in the beer-distribution supply chain.
If any players are missing, AI bots can play their roles you can even take part as a single player.
How does it 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 beating the Bullwhip Effect
The Beer Game was developed in the 1960s, but the term Bullwhip Effect was coined by Procter and Gamble in 1990.
They noticed that orders for diapers from distributors and wholesalers fluctuate significantly, even though demand for diapers hardly changed. You’ll experience something similar playing the Beer Game.
Can you beat the Beer Game?