Business simulation game for teaching multi-echelon supply chain management

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to present a new educational tool developed in the form of a business game for helping to understand concepts developed in the ECLIPS project, supported by the European Commission. The game provides an insight into different aspects of supply chain management, i.e. general supply chain mechanisms, as well as non-cyclic and cyclic inventory replenishment policies. This allows for people that have no deep notion in this area to better understand the project concepts and evaluate their efficiency in practice. Demonstrating concepts in a playful way is considered as more powerful and effective than purely explaining the underlying theory. The paper describes the rules of the game, playing process and provides results of the game test sessions.

The Modelling and Simulation of Complex Systems: Methodology and Practice. An Overview

“…A simulation-based business game "ECLIPS game" was developed for teaching the elaborated supply chain management approach ( [34], [35]). Here different supply chain structures could be designed by means of atomic models that represent various supply chain elements, e.g., a production facility, warehouse, transportation (by track or ship), distribution, retailer, customer demand (see Fig.…”