Beer distribution game

Beer distribution game

An example of players at a game board.
Players	Multiple teams with a minimum of 4 players
Setup time	10–20 minutes
Playing time	60–90 minutes; another 60–90 minutes for debriefing
Chance	None
Skills	Recommended for graduate students, members of the business management community

The beer distribution game (also known as the beer game) is an educational game that is used to experience typical coordination problems of a supply chain process. It reflects a role-play simulation where several participants play with each other. The game represents a supply chain with a non-coordinated process where problems arise due to lack of information sharing.^[1] This game outlines the importance of information sharing, supply chain management and collaboration throughout a supply chain process. Due to lack of information, suppliers, manufacturers, sales people and customers often have an incomplete understanding of what the real demand of an order is. The most interesting part of the game is that each group has no control over another part of the supply chain. Therefore, each group has only significant control over their own part of the supply chain. Each group can highly influence the entire supply chain by ordering too much or too little which can lead to a bullwhip effect. Therefore, the order taking of a group also highly depends on decisions of the other groups.^[2]