Quantifying the benefits of the lean thinking adoption by the beer game supply chain

Benefits obtained by the adoption of lean thinking are often declared in the literature but not measured both at local and global level. In this work, the benefits quantification of an adoption of a lean thinking order policy is measured in the case of beer game supply chain modelled by Thomsen et al. (1992) considering the impact on bullwhip effect and inventory both on a supply chain level and on a single stage level. The paper shows that lean thinking provides major benefits to the whole supply chain in terms of bullwhip effect and carried inventory if more and more levels apply it. On the other hand, the paper highlights that these benefits not always hold locally, i.e., for some levels can be more profitable when no levels apply an order policy lean thinking-based.