Kettering University & The Supply Chain Management Beer Game

Supply Chains are all around us. We rely on these organizational structures for everything from our food we eat to goods for our home to fuel for our vehicles. They are all around us but somewhat transparent in our lives. Things are available when we want them and we don’t think much beyond that.

Modern Supply Chain Management is a phenomenon that has developed over the past 20 years. An understanding of supply chains is important to the Kettering community. Anything we engineer or develop will require a supply chain to source, produce, and deliver to a user. My work in Innovation Development has taught me the importance of developing the capability to deliver a new innovation. That capability is a supply chain.

As a new instructor to Kettering, I was recently given the opportunity to develop a course in Supply Chain Management. My learning of the subject was a substantial contrast from my early experience. Supply chain principles are not obvious, but one exercise encapsulates many supply chain principles. I would like to share the principles of modern supply chain management through a student-active exercise known as the Beer Game.