The Root Beer Game: Supply Chain Simulation

The Root Beer Game Supply Chain Simulation is one of a series of simulations Forio has developed in partnership with Harvard Business School Publishing.

The Root Beer Game provides an engaging and memorable introduction to a variety of supply chain and organizational-behavior topics. Specific objectives the game addresses include:

• the bullwhip effect
• the impact of time delays on the supply chain
• team behavior and decision-making

Based on the classic Beer Game developed by Jay Forrester at MIT, this team-based simulation portrays a supply chain with four links: retailer, wholesaler, distributor and factory. Each player manages one link in the chain. At each stage of the distribution process, players face order processing challenges and shipping lags as well as central stock management problems. The player's objective is to minimize total costs and to keep inventories low, but not too low, to avoid backlogs.