A Simulation Game for Teaching Service‐oriented Supply Chain Management: Does Information Sharing Help Managers With Service Capacity Decisions?

Abstract

For decades, the Beer Game has taught complex principles of supply chain management in a finished good inventory supply chain. However, services typically cannot hold inventory and can only manage backlogs through capacity adjustments. We propose a simulation game designed to teach service‐oriented supply chain management principles and to test whether managers use them effectively. For example, using a sample of typical student results, we determine that student managers can effectively use end‐user demand information to reduce backlog and capacity adjustment costs. The game can also demonstrate the impact of demand variability and reduced capacity adjustment time and lead times.

On returns and network configuration in supply chain dynamics

“…The theoretical stream is devoted to the identification of the causes and potential solutions, with a specific focus on information as a potential remedy for the BWE (e.g., Baganha and Cohen, 1998;Chen et al, 2000;Cachon and Fisher, 2000;Lee et al, 2004). In the second stream, some contributions use the classic Beer Game (see e.g., Donohue, 2005, 2006) or one of its variants (Anderson and Morrice, 2000;Cantor and Katok, 2012;Croson et al, 2014) to create empirical data in a controlled environment and test hypothesis on the technical and behavioral causes of the BWE and its potential remedies. Finally, the natural experiment provide evidence for the existence, size and consequences of the BWE in several companies (e.g., Cachon et al, 2007;Dooley et al, 2010;Altomonte et al, 2012;Zavacka, 2012;Bray and Mendelson, 2012;Shan et al, 2014).…”

Foundations and Implications of a Proposed Unified Services Theory

“…But applying supply chain management to "pure services" like consulting and psychology can seem forced and unclear. Two clear exceptions are Anderson and Morrice (2000) and Akkermans and Vos (2003), which studied upstream amplification in mortgage and telecoms service process/ supply chains respectively. Traditional manufacturing supply chains are relatively linear, as depicted in Figure 1 (although obviously more expansive than this simplified figure).…”

A comparative study of manufacturing and service sector supply chain integration via the uncertainty circle model

“…Alignment of the end-customer with the customer placing the order does not imply that the distortion and amplification effects frequently observed in manufacturing supply chains is not present, as researchers have also found evidence of demand amplification in service supply chains (Anderson and Maurice, 2000). For example, Akkermans and Vos (2003) found that amplification in service supply chains was due to poor demand signalling across business functions.…”