Teaching Supply Chain Management Using an Innovative Practical Game

This paper presents a new practical game which helps undergraduate students to understand how the concept of supply chain management SCM works. The game uses a simple supply chain structure incorporating three entities of the supply chain: supplier, plant, and customer. The game employs a set of toy building blocks such as LEGO® blocks and has the rules of the game, responsibility of each player, product descriptions and bill of materials. This competitive game is used supply chain cost as the measuring to determine the winner team of the game and the Bloom's taxonomy as guidelines to develop the assessment testing based on the learning objectives of courses. This proposed board game has been tested by many undergraduate students who are taking SCM and Logistics Management courses. The results show that the students who played the game reached the higher scores of assessment testing than students who didn't play the game. Furthermore, most students have also positive view about this game.

[1]  Jc Jan Fransoo,et al.  TEACHING SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT THROUGH GLOBAL PROJECTS WITH GLOBAL PROJECT TEAMS , 2000 .

[2]  Sawsen Lakhal,et al.  The AACSB Assurance of Learning process: An assessment of current practices within the perspective of the unified view of validity , 2015 .

[3]  Brent D. Ruben,et al.  Simulations, Games, and Experience-Based Learning: The Quest for a New Paradigm for Teaching and Learning , 1999 .

[4]  Meng Chang Chen,et al.  A Study of the Web-based Learning System for Supply Chain Management Course Teaching , 2006 .

[5]  David Sparling,et al.  Simulations and supply chains: strategies for teaching supply chain management , 2002 .

[6]  Douglas J. Morrice,et al.  A SIMULATION GAME FOR TEACHING SERVICE‐ORIENTED SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT: DOES INFORMATION SHARING HELP MANAGERS WITH SERVICE CAPACITY DECISIONS? , 2000 .

[7]  Nabendu Chaki,et al.  A Distributed Retail Beer Game for Decision Support System , 2012 .

[8]  Fangruo Chen,et al.  The Stationary Beer Game , 2009 .

[9]  Marvin E. Gonzalez,et al.  Designing a supply chain management academic curriculum using QFD and benchmarking , 2008 .

[10]  Steven Orla Kimbrough,et al.  Computers play the beer game: can artificial agents manage supply chains? , 2002, Decis. Support Syst..

[11]  Chao Yang,et al.  Advertising and Pricing Decisions in a Manufacturer-Retailer Channel with Demand and Cost Disruptions , 2015, Int. J. Inf. Syst. Supply Chain Manag..

[12]  Philip Kaminsky,et al.  A New Computerized Beer Game: A Tool for Teaching the Value of Integrated Supply Chain Management 1 , 1998 .

[13]  Ki-Young Jeong,et al.  Learning from online beer distribution simulation game , 2011 .

[14]  Amy Z. Zeng,et al.  Integrating a discovery‐based laboratory to teach supply chain management fundamentals in an undergraduate management course , 2009 .

[15]  Jarrod Goentzel,et al.  EXPERIENCES WITH THE USE OF SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE IN EDUCATION , 2009 .

[16]  V. M. Rao Tummala,et al.  Developing supply chain management program: A competency model , 2008 .

[17]  Pedro M. Reyes A game theory approach for solving the transshipment problem: a supply chain management strategy teaching tool , 2006 .

[18]  Mehmet Gumus,et al.  Supply Chain Sourcing Game: A Negotiation Exercise , 2013 .

[19]  Kristen L. Brewer,et al.  Knowledge Management, Human Resource Management, and Higher Education: A Theoretical Model , 2010 .

[20]  Ian French,et al.  Exploring the Behaviour of a Centralised Supply Chain at Draeger Safety UK , 2009, Int. J. Inf. Syst. Supply Chain Manag..

[21]  Udayan Nandkeolyar,et al.  “Cola-Game”: An Innovative Approach to Teaching Inventory Management in a Supply Chain , 2008 .

[22]  Miguel Nussbaum,et al.  A framework for the design and integration of collaborative classroom games , 2011, Comput. Educ..

[23]  Ahmet Satir Curriculum design in Supply Chain Management , 2008 .

[24]  Joyce S. Mehring A PRACTICAL SETTING FOR EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING ABOUT SUPPLY CHAINS: SIEMENS BRIEF CASE GAME SUPPLY CHAIN SIMULATOR , 2009 .

[25]  F. Robert Jacobs,et al.  PLAYING THE BEER DISTRIBUTION GAME OVER THE INTERNET , 2009 .

[26]  Benjamin S. Bloom,et al.  Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: The Classification of Educational Goals. , 1957 .

[27]  Jussi T. S. Heikkilä,et al.  TEACHING SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT TO BUSINESS EXECUTIVES , 2000 .

[28]  Daria Battini,et al.  Logistic Game™: learning by doing and knowledge-sharing , 2009 .

[29]  Kurt Squire,et al.  Video games in education , 2003, Int. J. Intell. Games Simul..

[30]  David F. Pyke,et al.  A FRAMEWORK FOR TEACHING SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT , 2000 .

[31]  Hau L. Lee,et al.  The bullwhip effect in supply chains , 2015, IEEE Engineering Management Review.

[32]  Sameer Kumar,et al.  Supply chain design curriculum : models and methods development , 2006 .

[33]  D. Kolb Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development , 1983 .

[34]  Frenck Waage,et al.  A Supply Network's Optimal Information System and Material Flows , 2013, Int. J. Inf. Syst. Supply Chain Manag..

[35]  Federico Pasin,et al.  The impact of a simulation game on operations management education , 2011, Comput. Educ..

[36]  James Paul Gee,et al.  What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy , 2007, CIE.